Hate in the White House: A New Tool from the SPLC

| Present

Is it not tragic that we must speak of hate in the People’s House, our beloved White House in the seat of our national government? Unfortunately, we must call a spade a spade: the Trump Administration, from the top down, fosters hatred, bigotry, and animosity – citizen against citizen – on a regular basis. Donald Trump is the Divider-in-Chief, not the unifier that we demand of our President. 

Those of us who have major concerns about the divisiveness of the current Administration must be constantly vigilant about the abuses of power we are witnessing and other ways in which our democratic ideals are being eroded. (We should not have to do this: we should be able to celebrate our strengths and values, our rich diversity and our high ideals – and we must do those as well whenever possible.) The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which has been battling hate and intolerance for decades, “now has a resource, Hate in the White House, that serves as a monthly timeline of instances of extremism in the Trump administration.” The examples of extremist moves by Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, various Trump advisors, Chief of Staff John Kelly, and other officials, are outlined and addressed by SPLC to bring awareness and to show, sadly, that “once relegated to the fringes, the radical right now has a toehold in the White House.”

Whatever progress has been made in the past 50 years in the areas of Civil Rights, women’s rights, LBGTQ rights, and in other ways – notwithstanding that we still have a long way to go – can be lost in the blink of an eye. As tiring and frustrating as the constant fight for justice is, we must continue to wage it in every generation.

Let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Amos 5:24