Hatred's Promise
Embracing Corrosion

ELIZABETH GEORGE
April 10, 2026

I think it was in the 1990s when talk shows had their heyday. I used to watch them while I did my weight training in the afternoons after finishing my writing for the day. I found them fascinating. Watching them was like being a witness to the surgical removal of society’s soul. People from various backgrounds, ethnicities, professions, levels of social, educational, and cultural awareness would join the host of the show and reveal their darkest secrets, their grievances, their unresolved conflicts with friends and relations, their worst inclinations, their most debased fantasies…and all of it for the delectation of a studio audience and those watching at home (guilty as charged). I found it remarkable that the producers of these programs appeared to have an endless supply of individuals perfectly willing expose themselves to the world on the subject of the show that day. The highlight of these shows was frequently the moment of confrontation to which everything had been leading.

“I Slept with my Son’s Best Friend” would bring onto the stage Mom, Son, and Best Friend.

“I Slept with my Daughter’s Boyfriend” would usher Mom and daughter onto the stage.

“My Baby Sister is Really my Child” would welcome the two sisters and—if she was willing—grandmother/pretend-mother-to-baby-sister for the big reveal.

“I Pretended to Have a Terminal Disease” would offer the audience first the pretender to explain how he or she carried off the deception: shaved head, considerable weight loss/weight gain, feigning dizzy spells or inability to walk or loss of language, or whatever else might convince others of the validity of the sufferer’s suffering. Having established that, an individual in the life of the sufferer would be brought onto the stage to hear the truth. “I did it for the attention” our sufferer would say, and the host would carefully not point out that coming onto television to confess was the biggest attention getter of all.

I’m leading to something, Bear with me.

One afternoon the topic was more incendiary in that haters of a particular group of people were invited to come onto the stage and explain their hatred while people in the audience were there to talk them out of hating whomever they claimed to hate. Ridiculous, yes? But if you ever ventured into the world of the 1990s’ talk shows, you will know that keeping a viewership was critical to the show’s success and in order to do this, it was essential that the creative minds behind the show kept rolling the topics off the assembly line.

I remember one of the haters distinctly. She was quite young: a teenager. She was more than happy to announce to the audience that she was a Christian and she loved Jesus and she hated—really, really hated—Jews. One man in the audience—quite kindly—attempted to explain to her that Jesus of Nazareth was himself Jewish. “He was not!” she shrieked, going on to shout ridiculously, “He was a Christian!” As she spoke, her face contorted in a way that altered her appearance entirely. She went from an attractive young girl to a harridan-in-the-making, the kind of individual whose life was probably going to be dominated by a concrete certainty that she was in possession of the truth, all evidence to the contrary.

She had chosen her hatred early, perhaps encouraged by her family or so psychologically straitened by a religious view that she could not process anything that might challenge her to look at people and at facts in broader terms.

The thing about hatred is how it corrodes an individual’s heart, brain, and soul. Its virulent nature diminishes the ability to process rational thought; it erodes fellow-feeling, and ultimately it eradicates the capacity for experiencing compassion, empathy, altruism, and respect. The hater esteems only those who also hate. The hater is devoted only to those who share his beliefs, his prejudices, and his blindness.

Right now, it seems to me that we’re living in a whirlpool of hatred. We have long lost the ability to see anything as—in President Obama’s words— a “teachable moment.” Nothing is teachable any longer because individuals hatreds are encouraged by podcasts, by radio broadcasts, by corporate owned television networks, by social media platforms with algorithms that are designed to give you more of what you are already seeing and reading and responding to, and by cable shows and satellite radio shows designed to reflect the listeners’ and viewers’ mindset. These items are part of today’s social fabric. They narrow beliefs and prejudices to a pinpoint. And, as far as I know and as far as I have learned over time, nothing of substance has ever been able to get through the aperture made by a pin.

Which leaves us where we are today. Donald Trump is our living and breathing Ozymandias, consumed by an illusion of his own greatness. I only hope the chaos into which he has happily thrust our country forces someone to develop not only the voice to cry “Enough!” but also the courage to demonstrate the political meaning of that word before the rest of us are doomed to experience Donald Trump’s karma first hand.

© 2026 Elizabeth George
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104