Make America Hate Again
I agree with his stance on this, and I think Trump and his latest executive orders are awful, but I  also think that at this point, &quot;hatred,&quot; &quot;bigotry,&quot; and &quot;racism&quot; should be excised from public discourse.<p>These are labels. No one really knows what &quot;hate&quot; means anymore, but because people are emotional, they see the word, recall what they think of Trump, and think, &quot;yeah, that&#x27;s hateful!&quot;<p>This is a problem for two reasons. First, while Fred is probably a smart, intellectually rigorous guy, many people aren&#x27;t. Most people who shout &quot;that&#x27;s hateful&quot; or &quot;that&#x27;s racist&quot; don&#x27;t actually have a repository of comprehensive thought behind it. This is partly why Trump won in the first place. People everywhere would say, &quot;You support Trump! You&#x27;re racist!&quot; or &quot;Trump has a position involving race! He&#x27;s racist!&quot; This is not an argument, but once you introduce this vitriolic adjective into the room, everyone worries about their ideas being placed into this odious category, and discussion becomes stifled. People become sick of this, and vote Trump just to fuck with everyone.<p>The second reason is that using labels convinces no one who isn&#x27;t already on your side. Fred knows this, and this post is targeted at those people. This is virtue signaling: taking a &quot;brave stance&quot; on a position that people already agree with you on. Some virtue signaling is necessary; leaders should speak out; but generally this type of lazy rhetoric, combined with the incentive of popularity over truth, divides us more than any policy.<p>I&#x27;m glad he&#x27;s donating money, but he writes that he&#x27;s &quot;done keeping his mouth shut,&quot; and for that to be a courageous act he has to (like everyone else) do more than hurl labels.