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From Hate to Hope

IT’S NOT AN EASY TIME TO BE AN AMERICAN. In an era of global uncertainty, our nation is threatened from within by a growing cadre of home-grown hate groups. As president, Donald Trump has blamed immigrants for everything from stealing jobs to hatching terrorist plots–encouraged police to “get rough” with black suspects—and come down hard on transgender people in the military. Hate crimes in the US have increased by 20 percent since his election, with attacks on Muslims up by nearly 200 percent.   While Trump isn’t a card-carrying member of a white power group, we can’t ignore their mutual affinity.  For the alt-right, he’s a dream come true: A bully in the nation’s biggest bully pulpit.

This administration has made us uneasy from the start.  San Francisco cardiologist Brian Strunk reports an increase in “broken heart” syndrome triggered by the election–people suffering all the distressing symptoms of a heart attack no underlying cause.  And a recent study shows that across the country, anxiety and depression are on the rise, related to polarizing political events.  As the psychiatrist C. G. Jung once said of Hitler, “The most impressive thing about the German furor is that one man, who is obviously possessed, has infected” an entire country.  We can’t help but wonder:  Is Trumpism an opportunistic infection that will simply run its course? Or a superbug that will destroy the body politic?

Read the transcript of After Charlottesville: From Hate to Hope aired on the Passionate Justice Network. Or listen here