There are moments in politics when a single sentence tells you everything you need to know. At the Charlie Kirk memorial, President Donald Trump said the difference between him and Kirk was simple: Kirk didn’t hate his opponents, but he, Trump, does.
“That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponents and I don’t want the best for them, I’m sorry.” Trump said.
Let that sink in. The President of the United States, the man elected to serve all Americans, openly declared that hatred is not just a private feeling but a public creed.
That matters. In a democracy, opponents are supposed to be just that, opponents, not enemies. The Founders designed a system that assumes disagreement is inevitable, even healthy, so long as it remains within the boundaries of shared respect for the Constitution and the peaceful transfer of power. When a leader proclaims hatred as a badge of honor, he is not just describing himself; he is reshaping the moral compass of millions who follow him.
We have entered dangerous territory.
Politics is always partly about identity. Leaders reflect values onto those who support them. Trump has long understood that hatred can be a powerful organizing principle. He makes it a virtue, not a vice. His declaration is a mirror, and in it, millions of Americans see themselves reflected, not as citizens of a pluralistic nation, but as soldiers in a cultural war where compromise is betrayal and empathy is weakness.
This is not normal partisanship. It’s the hollowing out of civic life.
T.S. Eliot once wrote of “the hollow men, the stuffed men,” drifting without substance or soul. Trump is a hollow man, and the tragedy is that his hollow politics has hollowed out millions of his supporters. They are no longer anchored by community, faith, or shared national purpose. Instead, they are animated by the cheap fuel of resentment and hate.
It is easy to see why this is attractive. Hatred is simple. It relieves you of the burden of thinking about the humanity of the person across from you. You don’t have to consider their arguments, their struggles, or their dignity. You just have to despise them. Hatred is the shortcut to belonging in Trump’s America.
But hatred is a poor substitute for substance, and eventually it consumes everything, including the people who embrace it.
The United States is built on the assumption that people can disagree, sometimes fiercely, and still remain one people. That assumption is what keeps pluralism alive. Without it, politics turns into sectarian conflict, an endless spiral where power is the only currency and violence is the logical next step.
When a president brags about hating his opponents, it sets a permission structure for everyone else. If the president hates, why shouldn’t his followers? If hatred is a political virtue, then violence becomes easier to justify, and democracy becomes harder to defend.
This is not speculation. History is full of examples where authoritarian leaders normalize hatred until it becomes indistinguishable from patriotism. The results are always catastrophic.
It isn’t just the President, though. Geoffrey Ingersoll, Editor At Large for the “Daily Caller” a September 26 opinion piece titled “Enough Is Enough…I Choose VIOLENCE!”
“Greetings, Dear Reader,” his editorial begins, “Today, I choose violence. Literally.
“I know calls for violence are generally frowned upon. The issue is…I simply don’t care.”
He then went on the describe the actual bloody violence he wants to see heaped on those on the political Left by folks on the political Right. His descriptions are graphic. If that isn’t chilling, I don’t know what is.
So, the question is, what does a country like the United States do when its president and right-wing writers openly preach hate?
We cannot wish this away. Pretending it is just rhetoric misses the point. Words like this are not background noise. They are fuel. They shape behavior. They change how neighbors see each other. They give permission to people who might already be leaning toward anger or violence.
Here are some things we must do:
- Name it plainly. We cannot afford euphemisms. This is not “political passion” or “rough talk.” It is hatred, and it is dangerous. Call it what it is.
- Reinvest in civic culture. Hatred thrives in emptiness. When people are disconnected from community, church, school, and civic life, they become easy prey for demagogues. Rebuilding those institutions is not just nice, it is necessary.
- Model alternatives. Each of us has a responsibility to prove that disagreement doesn’t require dehumanization. We can embody the opposite of hollow politics: principled disagreement, empathy, and the recognition that democracy depends on treating opponents as fellow citizens.
- Stay awake to the danger. Hatred at the top of government is not a quirk of personality. It is a direct assault on the very idea of self-government.
If Trump is a hollow man, then his politics is a hollow gospel. And if millions of Americans follow him down that path, we face a national void. The choice before us is stark. We either fill that void with substance, community, empathy, and meaning, or collapse under the weight of our own emptiness.
The truth is that hatred cannot sustain a country. It can whip up a crowd, win a rally, and even carry an election, but it cannot build a society. What builds a society is the hard work of finding common ground, of seeing one another not as enemies but as neighbors.
That work is harder. It is slower. It does not come with the cheap thrill of hate. But it is the only path that keeps America from becoming something unrecognizable.
Trump’s words at the memorial will not be remembered as a throwaway line. They are a declaration of values. The President of the United States told us he defines himself by hate.
The rest of us have to decide whether we will do the same, or whether we will stand for something better.
