Although I was angry at him almost every day, I tried to remember that he was the President and also a human being, and I tried not to treat him as badly as he treated me.
I am not willing to participate in the bullying of President Trump, whether he does things that I agree with or not. That does not make me a bad person.
I watched the "shove." It wasn't very nice. It is, however, what someone who is being not only criticized every day but turned into a target for anyone at all might do, even if the person who was shoved hadn't done anything to the target.
I shoved a woman and yelled at her when I was trying to take the train a few months ago. It was awful. It was at a train station that is always full of people at rush hour, and I didn't want to be late. The doors of the train were about to close, and I jumped into the train and said "Move" loudly to a woman who was already in the train and in front of the doors. I also shoved her a little. It was not premeditated. It happened before I knew what I was doing.
She was shocked. Everyone who saw it happen was shocked. I was shocked that I had done it, and I apologized a lot, until she smiled and said not to worry about it.
What I realized was that being cruelly treated around the clock was not helping me to be empathetic to other people.
People who want to think the worst of other people, and who are horrible to their targets, want their targets to lash out, so they can say that the targets are bad people. It is impossible for anyone who is targeted that relentlessly never to lash out.
You can disagree with people without personal attacks. You can disagree with people without enjoying being part of a crowd that wants them to be humiliated. That is humane behavior, and everything else isn't, even when you hate someone.
Copyright L. Kochman, May 25, 2017 @ 9:26 p.m.
