Fear and rage are free drugs (they literally make the brain “high”) and many people substitute that high for “purpose” and for “belonging”. If we can continue to show people that caring for others is actually the greatest “heart and brain” high there is, only then will tides will begin to turn.

Yet people across the board must want to expand their horizons.

Anger and rage have a place, as a tool, a stepping stone to a resulted healing, or action. They both become a damaging stumbling block when that tool is used as the be-all destination.

I’ve never supported or been a part of movements where anger, fear, intimidation and rage are the driving collective motivator or bonding mechanism. I’ve even unsubscribed from certain liberal political newsletters and organizations because the messaging was too angry and polarized. No one political party or belief system owns the cornered market on rage and anger.

That being said—

The #TeamMAGA movement was built on rage, fear, intimidation, and anger. It’s purpose is to have a high-profile account holder on Twitter, or Facebook, or YouTube, who would turn all the other team members against someone on any of those platforms whose messaging they didn’t like. Then, the #TeamMAGA swarm would descend like locusts and cyber bully whomever’s opinion they didn’t agree with, en mass. It was a calculated “hit” process that has gone on for four years.

I’ve been on the other end of #TeamMAGA’s insane vitriol. I’ve had my life threatened, my body threatened, my family threatened, my work threatened, all because I publicly expressed that I don’t agree with the behavior of President Donald Trump, who encourages his biggest fans to act like mobs of crazed, violent fans.

I’ve reported and blocked profiles across multiple platforms over the years. They’d get shut down and others would pop up to take their place in the swarm of rage and anger.

At first, this was shocking and disturbing, until I began to see what it was truly all about. That none of this has been about politics. That it’s all been about a brokenness in people, a lacking in understanding one’s purpose.

Human beings are designed to thrive when helping others do something—anything. Living to solely fulfill ourselves will result in a feeling of loneliness and emptiness that many attempt to fill—often, fill with raging against another people online to forge some sort of “bond” with others, even through hating them.

For millions of people, rage and hatred are the only emotional connectors they have to others. It is a form of warped, conditional intimacy, a way that the hater won’t feel “alone” in the world…as long as they have someone to hate, and a group to cling to, who also hates the same people or ideals. Hate becomes the life ring someone is clinging to, while being tossed about in a dark, churning sea of unknowns—called life.

Yet hate and rage are the drug that separate us further from not only real connection, yet from ourselves. Because inside every human being is someone just wanting to actually, warmly connect with others, and to be seen for who and what we truly we are.

It’s how our spirit is designed.

#TeamMAGA has taken advantage of this loneliness in people, this blind need to belong—as have other various political organizations over the years on both side of the aisle. Yet this particular organization thrives on the collective need to choose attacking others through rage and anger as the bonding mechanism. And those who refuse to tow the rage line are then subject to the abuse of the members of the organization itself, until the straying subject falls back in line. It is, by the FBI’s current working definition, a cult.

The man that wrote the linked article below in 2018 was part of #TeamMAGA. His heart and mind were expanded and his journey took him away from the rage. And the quality of his life has improved greatly.

Anger, hatred, rage—all the mechanisms that create a false piousness—are temporary moments in a growth and understanding cycle. To adhere only to them, is to never grow.

#LeadWithLove

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