The trajectory of hate

Why would make Antifa and BLM thugs believe that harassing and violently attacking innocent families with children, even elderly, shoving them to the ground (child on left in picture was crushed under protective man with flag when BLM woman charged him. Click on pic for video), or shooting fireworks into a crowd of people at a restaurant, a justifiable thing to do?

I’ve been pondering this sociopathic behavior and reflecting on something profound that Jesus tells us about human nature in this regard. But before we get that, if you’ve been watching mainstream media, you’ve probably been led to believe that Trump supporters were the perpetrators of violence during the recent MAGA election protest rally in Washington D.C. And this would be very misleading, even false.

The rally itself was very peaceful with tens of thousands of patriotic people from all walks of life and ethnicity, families with children, marching together and even singing the National Anthem. But that peaceful scene changed dramatically when Antifa and BLM counter-protestors showed up toward evening. Here are just a few of the many video clips that show what the mainstream media won’t show you. Warning: these are all quite graphic:

• Young couple harassed and assaulted for being Trump supporters
• Family and kids harassed by BLM/Antifa
• Mother and young children violently attacked
• Disabled man assaulted for being a Trump supporter
• Elderly couple (with mother and child present being harrassed

The irony of all this vitriol and violence from a group who calls themselves “Antifa” is not lost on me. As the Italians would say, “There’s two kinds of fascists: fascists and anti-fascists.” Apparently, the irony wasn’t lost on this cartoonist either.

But there was one mainstream news channel that did show some of these videos and actually made a good point, which is relevant to the point I want to make. This is from the show “The Five” on Fox News:

As Greg Gutfeld said in his opening comments, “Remember, Trump is Hitler so violence is accepted.” Dagen McDowell also made this salient point:

“It’s the dehumanization and demonization of Trump supporters and even conservatives. Now, I don’t think this has just been happening over four years. This has been happening in University classrooms. This has been happening by the media. So, when someone on the left, say Antifa, sees a Trump supporter, they don’t see a mom or a dad or a son or a daughter, they just see the enemy. They just see the racist, the bigot, the Nazi…and the end justifies the means.”

The demonization and dehumanization that Mc Dowell points out is key to understanding what’s going on here. And this leads us to why Jesus equates anger with murder:

“You’re familiar with the command to the ancients, ‘Do not murder.’ I’m telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder.”  (Matt.5:21 MSG)

As Dallas Willard pointed out in his classic work, The Divine Conspiracy, what Jesus brilliantly reveals is the trajectory of dysfunctional relational behavior as it relates to unrestrained anger. Anger leads to contempt, which leads to malice, which can ultimately lead to murder. Each step involves a progressive degrading of a human life made in God’s image and who has infinite value to Him (John 3:16). It’s an evil escalation toward the total devaluation of another human life to the point where one actually feels justified in destroying it.  The Nazis did precisely this to the Jews in the 1930’s, which eventually led to their justifying exterminating a whole race of people, and they almost succeeded. It took the whole world to stop them.

Do you see the deceptively evil nature of this yet? According to Jesus, “murder” doesn’t have to be literal to be of the same spirit. Murder is just the ultimate end of this evil trajectory of hate that starts with unrestrained anger. Here’s a diagram I used in my series, “Jesus’ Subversive Kingdom” to illustrate this trajectory:

As Dagan McDowell astutely pointed out, is it any wonder that innocent people—families with children, disabled, elderly—can be harassed and violently attacked with impunity when the anti-Trump rhetoric has been ratcheted up so highly in the last four years? These attackers have been told for years that Trump is a Nazi, white supremacist, racist, misogynist, homophobe, by their leftist university professors, politicians, and mainstream media. It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not, that’s the continuous Newspeak narrative we’ve all been fed.

So, now, even if an elderly couple or a mom and dad with a child is seen wearing a MAGA hat, they might as well have a big swastika painted on it. That’s all these indoctrinated haters can see. And I put the blame for this mostly on radical leftists teaching in our universities and the Trump-hating mainstream media, for they’ve been complicit in programming the minds of our youth with this poisonous rhetoric.

Beloved, these are nothing short of hate crimes. And there’s a reason for this dystopian madness and Jesus tells how we got here. Whenever we begin to dehumanize and demonize any person or group we don’t like, we will soon feel justified in doing whatever evil thing we want to them. What we’re witnessing today should greatly concern all people of good will, regardless of political affiliation.