Are we more hateful now?

Is the political climate in America more hateful than it has ever been?

Based on what one hears over major television networks and read in nationally-recognized newspapers, there is tremendous hatred for President Trump by left-wing activists.

He has been identified as the individual preventing the left from taking over complete power in the nation, thereby diminishing the importance of normal citizens.

When wealthy convicted pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein apparently committed suicide in a federal prison, the first thing the organized left, which does not encompass a majority of Americans, immediately claimed he was killed by presidential maneuvering to cover up Trump misdeeds.

Attorney General William Barr is continuing an investigation of the death in order to determine if Epstein committed suicide or was murdered.

What investigators turn up could be seriously damaging to a number of famous people.

It is important to note that Epstein was a left-wing ideologue who donated heavily to Democrat political candidates.

The New York Post revealed that there was a bizarre painting of former President Bill Clinton wearing a blue dress with red high heels hanging in Epstein’s New York Apartment.

Epstein’s suicide came after the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) unsealed more than 2,000 documents in the case on Friday, including affidavits and depositions of key witnesses in a lawsuit against Epstein and socialite Ghislaine Maxwell .

Included in the released documents were multiple high-profile people who are accused of engaging in sex with a woman who claims that she was forced to work for Epstein.

Among those accused by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, 33, are “prominent Democratic politicians — former Sen. George Mitchell and ex-New Mexico governor and Clinton cabinet official Bill Richardson,” Fox News reported.

Revising American history

Truly disgusting is the drive to rewrite American history, including removing all statues, paintings and other artifacts from public view.

Jarrett Stepman of the National Heritage Foundation and contributor to the Daily Signal reports that the San Francisco, Calif., school board voted 4-3 recently to cover a mural on school property depicting the life of George Washington.

That action was taken rather than tearing down the mural.

The school board said the George Washington mural “traumatizes students” and “glorifies slavery, genocide, colonization, manifest destiny, white supremacy, oppression, etc.,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

Jon Golinger, executive director of the Coalition to Protect Public Art, an organization dedicated to preserving the mural, said of the decision: “While it is a step in the right direction to take permanent destruction off the table, we will continue to strongly oppose spending $815,000 to permanently wall off the murals so nobody has the choice to see them or learn from them.”

New images covering the original mural, according to School Board President Stevon Cook, will depict “the heroism of people of color in America, how we have fought against and continue to battle discrimination, racism, hatred, and poverty.”  

Stepman comments:

“One of the remarkable aspects of this whole debate—besides the fact that a school was seriously considering destroying a piece of art—is the fact that the mural originally was meant to create a less flattering portrayal of Washington.

“It was painted in 1936 by artist Victor Arnautoff, a man of the far left in his own time.  

“According to historian Fergus M. Bordewich, Arnautoff included images of slavery and violence against Indians as a way to present a less glamorized view of Washington. Bordewich wrote in April:

“‘[Arnautoff] included those images not to glorify Washington, but rather to provoke a nuanced evaluation of his legacy. The scene with the dead Native American, for instance, calls attention to the price of ‘manifest destiny.’ Arnautoff’s murals also portray the slaves with humanity and the several live Indians as vigorous and manly.

“‘Those who condemn the murals have misunderstood it, seeing only what they sought to find. They’ve also got their history seriously wrong. Washington did own slaves—124 men, women, and children—and oversaw many more who belonged to his wife’s family. But by his later years he had evolved into a proto-abolitionist, a remarkable ethical journey for a man of his time, place, and class.’’

Politics have always been a rough sport.

Even now-revered President Abraham Lincoln was raked over the coals for some of his actions, probably deservedly so, as he exceeded his constitutional authority in the midst of the Civil War.

Stepman explains the current squabbles with the past are over how to negatively portray American history.

Any disagreement with leftist theory is reason for erasure.

Just who are these censors of the nation’s past?

Stepman blames far-left activists, who are less concerned with creating new monuments to worthy Americans and more interested in seeking out and destroying everything that stands as a proxy for what they hate.

And their hate runs deep.

He cites the suggestion of Charlottesville mayor Nikuah Walker to remove Thomas Jefferson’s birthday as a holiday in Charlottesville, his home and where he contributed so much to the community (the University of Virginia, for one).

She explained on her official Facebook that Jefferson, the nation’s third president, is still celebrating his birthday “in hell.”

Jefferson was one of the nation’s founders who helped draft the Declaration of Independence.

Such controversies do nothing to reduce the problems that plague us.

Stepman identifies the culprits of the drive to de-construct American history as bureaucrats and a relentless faction of engaged activists – not American people as a whole.

The message seems to be if you don’t agree with us we’ll destroy you.

It is about power – not history or statues.

He writes:

“These movements are forcing politics to infect every corner of our existence, and that weakens this country. It makes us more hateful toward one another and trains us in the un-American notion that to win arguments, we must quash, liquidate, and erase from all memory those we disagree with.”

No nation’s history is perfect but America’s has been better than most, moving unceasingly to improve its treatment and opportunity for all.

It seems ungrateful (actually ignorant) to treat its history with such disrespect.

Informed patriotism is the glue that binds us all together.