I get that there are extreme differences between the two political parties

[MIButterfly]

but why the hate? It seems that Republicans and their followers hate us wirh the passion of a thousand burning suns. We're the scum of the earth with absolutely no redeemable qualities whatsoever in their minds. We have leaders in our party who are intelligent, articulate, pensive, thoughtful, who care about our country and its people and work hard to do what's best for everybody and they're subject to to all kinds of scorn and ridicule for the most ridiculous of reasons.

At the risk of sounding like an old fogey, it wasn't always like this. There used to some decorum and mutual respect across the aisle. Now it's hate, hate, hate, we can't work with you on anything because you're the evil, devil worshipping, baby-killing heathens that want to take money away from decent hard-working folks and give it to lazy, good-for-nothing welfare queens who are driving around in Cadillacs, eating filet mignon and drinking champagne in their mink coats on our dime.

All the good the Democrats have done is forgotten and swept away. All the social programs, including Social Security and Medicare, programs that have saved millions from falling into poverty in retirement, came from the Democrats and almost 100 years later, Republicans are still trying to find a way to get rid of them. Republicans are NOT FOR THE PEOPLE! When will Republican voters wake the hell up and realize that? They don't give a damn about us. They don't even give a damn about the people who vote for them. Yet, we are the evil ones.

It makes absolutely no sense to me. Is the Democratic Party perfect? No, it's not and that's okay. We're made up of humans and anything involving humans isn't going to perfect. But our hearts are in the right place and we try to do the right thing for everybody, not just a select few. We try to include everybody and welcome different points of view, not just step in line and follow the talking points du jour. Contrary to what the opposition erroneously and continually screeches about us, we don't hate America. We love our country and strive to make it better for everyone. We believe in fairness, justice and equality for EVERYBODY. I am proud to call myself a Democrat.

I don’t see where Republicans have anything to be proud of, especially with this administration. But hey, even though DJT has proven time and time again, on a daily basis that he's inadequate, incompetent and so obviously unqualified to be president, they still support him because he has the R. Better a complete and total idiot than any kind of Democrat. I just don't understand that kind of thinking.

[Blues Heron]

1. Hate radio, hate internet, and hate TV

[bearsfootball516]

3. That's a big part of it.

There's a lot of research that shows the acceleration of anger began when right wing talk radio exploded in the late 80s/early90s.

[Cosmocat]

10. Correct - many decades of gas lighting

by completely immoral profiteers like Limbaugh, Hannity, Carlson, Beck, Ingraham and many thousands of others cranking up people on the evil liberal boogyman, hate government and all the many contrived "issues" like the WAR NO CHRISTMAS, while telling them they are great patriots and christians.

Honestly don't know that we can survive it at this point, we are past a critical mass that just too many people believe the bullshit in their bones.

[progressoid]

11. This.

And savvy (aka: slimy) politicians know how to exploit vulnerable people with media.

[SheltieLover]

2. Reading this NIH article on the differences in liberal vs conservative brain structure should answer your questions

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3092984/

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. Questions like these can always be answered by "racism," fwiw.

[EdmondDantes_]

8. You can add in sexism and homophobia for good measure

[WhiskeyGrinder]

12. you can, but it's superfluous

[Ocelot II]

5. When you are dealing with authoritarians or wanna-be authoritarians, it's not enough

for their political adversaries to be regarded as wrong or misguided, but still people they can negotiate with and maybe find common ground with on some issues. In order to get people to support your authoritarian regime the adversary has to be an actual mortal enemy who threatens everything you believe in, and the way you create that enemy is by dehumanizing them and portraying them as completely evil. Pay attention to the language used by Trump et al. For example, they describe Democrats as actually encouraging dangerous criminal immigrants - rapists and murderers! - to swarm our "open" borders just so they can vote for Democratic candidates. This, of course, is insane on its face for multiple reasons: We don't have open borders in the first place; we don't want dangerous criminal immigrants any more than the GOP does and favor excluding or deporting them; and noncitizens can't vote anyhow. But the facts aren't important when you want people to believe your adversary is a dire threat to society. Fear is powerful. So Democrats will be described as depraved, vicious, destructive and inhuman, not just wrong. Majority Democratic cities are portrayed as crime-ridden hellholes terrorized by dangerous non-white foreigners and equally dangerous non-white native-born people. People who aren't quite human who must be hated and eliminated. It's scary shit right out of the Nazi playbook. Just trying to explain that Democrats are ordinary people who have jobs, pick up litter, donate to charities, respect their communities, and want a government that supports all of its people won't make a dent in all that carefully-constructed fear.

[Torchlight]

6. Hatred and division proved to be an effective profit-generating tool

while also delivering short-term political benefits. It persuaded hate-radio and podcast consumers that anyone who challenged a preferred narrative was somehow defective, engaging in seditious and un-American propaganda. This "in for a penny, in for a pound" crowd allowed even the most absurd claims from numerous hate-driven media personalities to shape their views, hence the bumper-sticker level issue-oriented dialogues we have reduced ourselves to over the past 30 years.

[dickthegrouch]

7. More perfect union

We should be hammering them on why they aren’t doing the most basic part of the preamble to the constitution

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility …

Point out how we always work towards that, and they just steal and divide.

[rampartd]

9. these people take the rapture seriously

and have been taught , from earliest age and for generations that we are sodomite baby killing devil worshippers who have an agenda to turn them all trans.

talk to them if you want. i tend to do more listening. they want trump to kill us all, and will gladly help.

[betsuni]

13. The Newt Gingrich Method helped a great deal:

"The goal? Make Americans so disgusted with government that they would lose trust with whoever was in power. The Gingrich model my sound familiar; it included 'name-calling, conspiracy theories, and strategic obstructionism.' All were employed to establish dysfunction as a policy in and of itself. The Democrats were made to appear to be incapable of getting anything accomplished. ... Gingrich gained power and held sway in the House while behaving just as he had encouraged young Republicans to act ... . He'd advised them to 'learn to raise hell,' to stop being so 'nice,' to realize that politics was, above all, a cutthroat 'war for power' -- and to start acting like it. If only he'd gotten accepted into art school. ... Gingrich instructed Republicans to use words such as 'betray, bizarre, decay, destroy, devour, greed, lie, pathetic, radical, selfish, shame, sick, steal, and traitors' when speaking about Democrats."

Brian Tyler Cohen, "Shameless"

Not good enough simply to win, the enemy must be demonized and destroyed, no limits. Republican audiences in that hate bubble are so well trained, like attack dogs, to automatically hate Democrats without knowing why. And the gullible ones who believe that Democrats could do things but don't because (fill in the mindless name-calling conspiracy here: spineless cave throw in the towel don't fight corrupt status quo neoliberal corporatist etc.), different breed of dog.

[The Wizard]

14. Pox (deliberate typo) News

is a very effective brain washing operation that would make Goebbels green with envy. Their audience sees Democrats as mortal enemies that must be eliminated. They have turned Americans against each other for political advantage. This is right out of Machiavelli's "The Prince, " and is the best thing that ever happened to Putin. Pox is essentially anti American Russian propaganda. If we are to survive as a nation Pox News must be silenced.