I am sure you have had enough, enough of politics, enough of The Mueller Report, enough of the Media fascination with Trump, enough of the back and forth between both aisles of the political party as they foam about “Fake News”, “Frauds” and “Felons.” Enough!

When will the anger stop?

It’s like killing a bad weed, in order to get anger to cease and desist you need to kill it at the roots. Anger doesn’t go away by getting angry at the angry, nor does making fun of the angry work either, it only makes them madder. You need to first find the origin of the fury and stop it there.  I think I found it.

I was reading an article yesterday and they had a reference made by the late Charles Krauthammer, a political observer, who said, “When the right thinks you are wrong they call you wrong, when the left thinks you are wrong they call you evil.” At first, this seems like a rather innocuous observation, but read it again, it reveals the roots of our country’s anger. And if we let this root continue to grow, even in our heart, there is no hope for us.

I think Charles is half-right, because more and more people, both left and right, are starting to view each other as evil. Instead of saying someone believes something wrong because I believe they have the facts wrong, we are now saying someone believes something wrong because they are monsters, cruel creatures who want to hurt and control others. That is why they believe what they do.

How do you see your neighbor? When they disagree with you do you think they are just irrational or malevolent? 

That leads us to the second observation: Why does it seem like the left is more prone to jump to judgment? Why do they swim in deeper waters of acrimony and indignation? I think the answer is so obvious that it is hidden. Most progressive people find their hope in progressive politics. Whereas the majority of the right and those who follow traditional values find their hope in something higher to lean on and find meaning in. So for the right, when politics don’t go your way you are going to be O.K. because you have someplace else to go. But for the left when your candidate loses, or your pet policy is voted down, your world is ruined.

The people on the left see politics as their savior. That is the problem. And for the most part, those on the other side have better things to do once they vote. Instead of joining in the newest political revolution by spending their weekends standing in front on Capital Hill picketing, those on the right tend to spend their weekends doing more earthy and family-friendly things: they join a church, support their kids in a local school community, and eat potlucks with their cousins at grandma’s 80th birthday party.

While the left is busy changing the world, most of the right is busy changing the laundry or their one-year old’s diapers.

So when you disagree with someone on the left you are not just exchanging ideas, you are disparaging their main source of hope. It is like telling a Christian that Jesus is all a farce, they will hear that as an attack on their source of life and meaning. So when you tell a person on the left that you don’t agree with the Green New Deal or find A. O. C. and her rantings as silly, they will think you are attacking their only hope for the world.

In their way of thinking, Donald Trump is not just an arrogant flawed human who is like all of us, but to the mind of the left, he is the Devil incarnate with orange skin. No wonder The Mueller Report makes them so mad, the devil escaped their grasp again. And if you ever agree with any of his policies it is a sure sign you are demon possessed as well. Just watch some of the mainstream media pundits, they act more like priests wanting to perform an exorcism on our country, than the dispassionate neutral news reporters of the past.

I found this same kind of warped reality when I lived in the Soviet Union for a year. From the time of the victory of WW2, the Russian government was ruled by a Communist elite who found hope in a Marxist revolution. Marx, Engles, Lenin, and Stalin were their gods, and communism was their religion. They really believed “equality of outcome” was the hope for the new Russian soul, and politics and government were the curators of that dream. And if you wanted to join the Communist party, and you wanted employment in the new regime, you needed to believe the way they told you to believe – that there is no God and man is the measure of all things.

The only community to belong to was to be found in the State and not the Church. The Church became the main threat to the rule of Soviet leadership, and over time, the community of faith was eventually kicked out. This was all done through the use of government force. And sadly, for the progressive left, they don’t have the full power of the government to enforce their beliefs. They would if they could, but since they can’t they are mad, fuming mad. That is primarily where their anger comes from.

But you have no excuse for yours. If God is your God find your hope in him and not politics. And maybe, just maybe, the world will become a more peaceful place