Hate Speech Tactics

There's a strong tendency this cycle, more than even 2008 and 2012, to engage in a lot of classic hate speech tactics, such as:

Othering  ("They're not part of MY America")

Dehumanizing  ("They're all criminals!" "They're all deplorables!")

Rationalizing ("They're evil so it's fine if I break their stuff or if someone else does it")

Paranoia ("That negative fact about my candidate is only there because the other candidate paid to have it planted")

It's no wonder we've seen fire bombs, mob violence, and general civil unrest.

Other symptoms include:

The death of skepticism ("The other candidate is a liar, but mine speaks the truth!")

Blind dismissal of facts that run contrary to candidate narratives ("They fight for the average person!")

Higher levels of smug willful ignorance than I can recall previously ("I refuse to read and analyze those facts because I already know they're unimportant and that makes me better than you!")

The only thing close to the last one is how the GOP ignored poll numbers in 2008 and 2012, choosing to believe less reliable numbers instead.

There are a lot of otherwise intelligent people who are purposefully castrating their higher brain functions and devolving into partisan troglodytes. And it's only getting worse.