Whats all this hate stuff anyhow
Back in my Republican days, I used to enjoy sitting down and talking with Steve Sviggum, who was speaker of the MN house at the time. Sometimes we’d agree, sometimes not, but it was always a blast just to jaw with him. One of the things I remember asking, was whats the deal with all this hate stuff. I remember him saying, they could have huge disagreements on the floor, yet, at the end of the day be willing to go have a beer across party lines etc.
Twenty years ago, when I was involved with the IA state govt (no, not as an elected guy), I found the same thing. We might have substantial disagreements in the meeting sessions, yet, when finished for the day, it was a real blast to sit back and share experiences… many of which ended up being not all that different…. apart from the difference in official pov.
Thus, it does seem to be the case, that in actual political work, hate doesn’t enter the picture all that much, folks ultimately do have to work with one another. Yet, it seems more and more, the MSM likes to focus on the disagreements, and spin such into hate in order to bump up market share, and thus ad revenue. Its somewhat similar on websites…. intense controversy teetering on hate brings up traffic counts, which again helps page rank, SEO, and ultimately ad revenue. (hate in and of itself on the web is a real problem though… just ask any webmaster… there is a fine line not to be crossed, something the MSM doesn’t have to deal with).
The problem is… hate is an insideous thing, and it can propagate from the screen or newspaper into real life fast if left unchecked. These 2 guys got into it, and one ended up in the hospital, and another in jail.
Its great to be passionate about ones candidate or issues, even so far as being vocal, but hate….whoa, thats going too far.
