Watching Trump on TV the other day, I considered the depth and breadth of my hatred for him. I hate him with more specificity than I’ve ever hated anyone, except maybe my ex-husband.

After 17 years with him, I hated the way my ex drank his daily orange juice. He placed his feet in a certain way, and always faced the same window.

Usually, you have to spend a lifetime with someone before you can hate them at this granular level, but Trump lays outside of usual parameters. In four years, he has seeded a wild garden of almost metaphysical hatred, such that most of us feel like world class connoisseurs.

Who among us does not hate the way he shapes his mouth in that puckered O? What about the sniffing? What about how he stands, leaning forward and rocking back and forth? What about the back of his head, the way he combs his “hair” into a coiffed duck-tail? The way he pronounces China, always pausing a beat before uttering the word and letting you know that he’s really thinking “vagina.”

The hyperbole, the biggest ever, more than anyone has ever seen, perhaps in the history of the world. And the imaginary People who are always Saying.

The slow lumbering portentous walk, the ill-fitting suits, the flapping overcoat, the hand gestures. The fucking hand gestures! The way he modulates his voice, the way he says “intress-ting” when he means “I’m so mad about this.” The way he mimics intelligent people in a dumb Poindexter voice. The way he likes to call himself Sir when he quotes people.

The way he says “Ivanka” with a disturbing reverence. The expression on his face when he’s pretending to listen to anyone, restlessly waiting to return to the spotlight.

I know I’m leaving out so much! Yesterday, my sister texted me to see if I’d noticed that his hair was less yellow. Of course I had. Am I blind or what?

I feel I’ve been driven to the outer limit of hatred with this cunt. I’m a hateful person anyway, but this is different.

However, luckily, I can still register love.

I’ve been watching the Smithsonian’s Panda Cam, enthralled by the way Mei Xiang, the 22 year old mother, cares for her baby, Bao Bao.

It’s almost unbearable to witness such maternal tenderness. Watch her as she plays with her cub and audibly kisses it, rolling it around and cradling it as it snuggles into her huge body.

Any mother will be moved by this exhibit of sublime love. Cynics can point out that this is just instinct, but so what? Plenty of our behavior is instinctive. It would be nice if we were better in touch with some of our instincts, like compassion. Compassion can be hard to muster while our bodies and souls have been so relentlessly threatened in 2020.

I wish I were the mother panda, or the baby. I wish I could be immersed in love. It’s a daily struggle, isn’t it?

But as I’ve been sitting here typing, my husband has popped his head in three times to ask how I’m doing and if I need anything. Maybe he is my mother panda! In the awful awfulness of my life, he is a blessing. Should we have our own live stream?!

I was going to write about something else but a tweet from a journalist I like has destroyed my equilibrium.  Brian Stelter shared a threat he got from a disgruntled Trump supporter:

What inspires a person to take the time to insult and threaten a complete stranger?

When you take this kind of rabid free-floating rage and hatred and you multiply it by ten million, you’ve got a real mess. Slobbering, irrational defenders of some twisted ‘ideal’ are everywhere, finally getting their chance to do some damage however minor. It all adds up.

It adds up and it spreads like a virus. I am part of it. When Ivanka Trump tweets some simpering crap about motherhood, I taunt her. It makes me feel better. However, I’m going to rethink this. I don’t want to be part of any social media hate mob.

I blame Trump for inciting misguided rage and hatred, but it began with the tea party and before that by American meddling in the Middle East. Trump harnessed it and exploited it after half of America went berserk about having a black president. And now, we look at our neighbors and Facebook friends with unease; are they one of Us or one of Them?

Look how easily fear changes people. The forces in charge want to generate fear because it grooms us for manipulation. Fear of perspiration, dandruff, dingy teeth, a limp dick, high cholesterol, cancer, malware, identity theft, militias, drug companies, pesticides,  poverty, terrorists, and nuclear destruction.

Now we’ve turned on comedians. How dare they! Me, I don’t want to suppress free speech. If you don’t like a comedian or Ann Coulter, don’t listen. But people seem primed to be outraged. The smallest things set them off. Maybe the big picture is too overwhelming?

Thinking about terrorists and the death cult that seduced them, I imagine how they’ve been groomed to become suicidal martyrs. That’s a lot of hardcore grooming. You probably have to start with a vulnerable person who feels bitterly cheated and immutably insignificant. Dying in a blaze of glory becomes more appealing that a lifetime of being a nameless dishwasher somewhere.

Poverty, hopelessness, lack of education, plus the systematic instilling of fear – is that the recipe?

Here in the US, Trump has used that recipe with the instincts of a mad savant. The sooner he is revealed as what he is to his deluded followers, the better we can think things through.

I’m not preaching Let’s All Be Nice and Love Each Other: just slow down and decide what kind of person you want to be. Start with compassion and you can’t go wrong.

Instead of tweeting “Shut up you stupid whore” to Ivanka, I’m going to remember that she is a victim of … I don’t know, incest? She too is a human being. I’m not so sure about Jared though.

If you’re anything like me, your consciousness has been co-opted by Donald Trump, with all the attendant fear, dread and hatred associated with his rise to power. It’s hard to focus on other things.  It’s draining and exhausting.

So maybe it would help to express our feelings in one burst daily*, instead of letting the rage contaminate the rest of our brains. I’ll start, by addressing him directly.

Dear Donald,

Why can’t you die, you stupid motherfucker? I can’t stand to see your face or hear your voice, and by “can’t stand” I mean it is fucking up my entire organism. I hate you with the power of a trillion suns. You are the stupidest man on earth. You have made me use the term Piece of Shit when it wasn’t even in my lexicon or whatever it’s called.

You are too stupid to live. I would give my life to undo your existence. Speaking poetically by the way, since I am not armed! Still, you have made me a patriot. It’s unbearable to have such a vulgar lowlife cunt pretending to be a President. Please take your awful family and go to a distant planet where you can make those hand gestures all day long without making me sick.

I hate you, you fat stupid pig.

Love, Sister Wolf

You know what, that felt pretty good!

I invite you to share your own letters to Donald. I’m looking forward to some bracing, heartfelt invective, as long or short as you wish.

*This is a public service and collaborative literary project.

Can we just admit that Trump is ruining our lives?

Every day, every hour, it’s non-stop Trump. It’s killing me, but I can’t stop looking for new lies to flip out about, new insults to our intelligence, new interviews with his smug hateful mouthpieces, new fuel for my helpless rage at this fucking cunt’s unthinkable success.

I can’t stand his mouth, his hair, his profile, his hand gestures, his vocal timbre, his diction, his lumbering gait, his skin texture, his awful children and his whole Hitler routine.

How can such a repugnant clown be this close to becoming  president?

The other day, a Mexican guy was walking by our street, selling food from a pushcart, and calling our his wares. I turned to my husband and said with all seriousness, “That guy would make a better President than Trump!” He looked friendly and decent and hardworking. LET HIM BE COMMANDER IN CHIEF, not Trump!

What is wrong with  the people who like Donald Trump? Forget that cliche about People are mad, People want change, bla bla bla. That doesn’t come close to explaining why they’d want to put an ignorant piece of shit in charge.

What will happen if he debates Hillary? Will he just say “Buh-leeve me, buh-leeve me” or bring up Monica Lewiski, and then claim he won the debate? And then his polls will go up  like they did after he went around saying to black people “What the hell do you have to lose?”

This is so preposterous and yet sinister,  like a virtual reality Twilight Zone episode.

How can we take two more months of this? How are you managing to cope?

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God, what an ordeal. I’m going directly to Beyonce to say: Why did everyone love this performance???

I really think I have never seen such an obnoxious display of self-importance in my whole life. “Welcome to my World?” Who gives a shit about her world! Why can’t she sing a song with a melody? It’s all like a long intro that never turns into an actual song. Since when does spreading your legs in a leotard and shaking your hair around signify feminism? Is everybody crazy? Beyonce is now like a parody of a self-important diva. She fucking LOVES herself. Why does she need us at this point? When she tells the audience ‘I love y’all!’ it is absurdly hollow.

And the fucking husband-and-baby gambit, Jesus Christ. Who else would do that? Just awful.

Okay. Moving on. The rest of the show was about asses, most of them huge. I was actually moved to consult my husband for a male judgement on whose ass was the night’s biggest. His answer was Iggy, which surprised me. Surely Niki Minaj had the evening’s hugest ass, or maybe she just twerked it in our faces more.

The look of dismay on Rita Ora‘s face during the Anaconda dance functions perfectly as a universal statement of repugnance for this tawdry shit. It just can’t get any lower. Racist, sexist, artificial, we now have Miley Cryus as the elder statesman and voice of reason. Please Adele, come back, we need you.

In order of awfulness there was:

Tayler Swift – Tragically delusional, she now thinks she is Britney Spears. Make her die.

Nicki Minaj – Depressingly shameless, she has some nerve to lecture other rappers about artistic integrity.

Sam Smith – Ugh! Stop singing that same fucking song. He’s like Antony Hegarty without the gender intrigue. Hate him. Bring back Boy George if we need a pudgy gay white soul singer!

Maroon 5 – Adam Levine is a disgrace to the Chosen People. He needs to shave and to stop imitating Sting.

Jesse J – Ew, what is the point of her? She’s just a big man with a screechy voice.

Now, here’s what was good:

Iggy Azalea – because I love her and that’s that.

Rita Ora – because she can actually sing.

Usher – because he can dance.

Homeless Jesse – because he is really cute, and I liked his relative composure.

Miley Cyrus – Because she managed to look ‘classy’ by keeping her tongue in her mouth, and stole everyone’s thunder with that homeless shit.

Maybe now people can stop throwing buckets of ice water on themselves and start throwing water at Tayler Swift if at all possible.

I know it’s not very interesting to hate Gwyneth, but how can one ignore her this week? It’s like she WILL NOT REST until every single person on earth detests her. Is her work done yet? If not, we’re getting very, very close.

Today’s revelation (for me, anyway) is that she advises women in troubled relationships to stop fighting and give their man a blowjob instead. Really, Einstein? You think that might work?

What a fucking imbecile. I love the pictures of her feigned embarrassment even more than I love that awful see-through dress she wore recently. But not as much as I love the time she tweeted something like “niggas all in Paris!” to indicate her down-ness.

There is so much to love, i.e. hate, that it’s almost redundant, like denouncing Hitler. Wait. Am I comparing Gwyneth to Hitler?! Sure, see Godwin’s Law. But if you need to catch the latest Iron Man movie and your revulsion for Gwyneth is getting in the way,  here’s a guide to putting things in perspective.

I don’t need to see Iron Man, so I’m good.

If you believe you were at the forefront of the anti- Gwyneth movement, let’s hear about it! (If you don’t hate Gwyneth, you shouldn’t be here at all, just leave quietly.)

I can’t take much more of Madge’s provocations. Obviously the UN is helpless, just like with Syria.

Who would think that she’d still be so insistent about bothering us! Has the competition from Lady Gaga driven her out of her mind? Has she forgotten that she’s already showed us everything in that book “Sex?” Does she have any sympathy for her children? Does she even remember that little baby she bought in Malawi?

I need her to go away. I’ve needed this for so many years. There is no escape from her. I thought I had transferred my hatred to Ms. Gaga but no, now she will have to flash her 53 year old nipple if she wants my attention.

It seems like people are going out of their way just to make me mad! That fucking Gwyneth has been working overtime on twitter to get me going. I refuse to give her the satisfaction of responding.

Gwyneth, go ahead and call people Niggas! Keep working on Goop! Make as many country records as you want. I am focusing my wrath on Madge only, and hoping I can manifest a little “accident” for her if I concentrate hard enough.

All other irritants pale next to Madonna but here are some you can add to if you like.

Pierce Piers Morgan
Lana Del Rey
Kristen Stewart
pictures of cats, pizza, and hippies cavorting in the woods
Snow White movies
people who say “Rye rye rye” in agreement, instead of just saying “right,”
diminutive names for Justin Bieber
ostentatious neck tattoos
band names like “Foster the People.”
Mitt and Anne Romney

I recently had the pleasure of spending an evening with an old friend who is now divorced from the husband who used to boss her around and make her have sex with him three times a week without regard to her own lack of desire. He’s out of her life now, for the most part, but she still hates him.

In fact, she plans to hate him forever, just as I hate my ex-husband.  I have forgiven nearly all my grudges, even ones I swore to take to the grave, but I will never stop hating my ex-husband. Looking back at my old journals, I discovered that I hated him even before I married him!

I once read that a large percentage of divorced women admit to having married a man they didn’t love. This was supposed to be shocking news. It probably explains why they ended up divorced. It’s a bad idea to marry someone you actually hate, so make sure you never do it.

I married my ex at 20, after four years of living with him. I didn’t know what to do with my life and I think I hoped he would take care of me. I don’t like taking care of myself, although I am more than happy to take care of  others.

Anyway, I hated him. I hated the way he walked and I hated the way he smelled. I hated his repressed personality and I hated his petty criticism of everything I did or thought. I hated the way he’d point to a girl with close-cropped hair and say “You know, you’d look good like that.”   Why would a man marry a woman with waist-length hair only to ogle girls with crew-cuts? What a fucking cunt.

Finally, after 17 years together, we got divorced. By then, I hated the way he breathed and the way he drank his orange juice.  I was shattered by the process of divorce, but gradually came to relish my freedom from his oppressive presence.

The only thing we agreed upon was our love for our son. But we always disagreed about what he needed and what was good for him.

After a long  struggle in rehab, our son stayed clean for a while but had a relapse and was on a binge. We took him to a treatment center where he was supposed to stay for thirty days. After ten days, they thew him out: We couldn’t meet their demands for $250 per day, even though they were being paid by our insurance company. Meanwhile, Max had called me after the first few days, anxiously reporting that he shared a room with convicts who stayed up all night playing cards. He was cold, but he wasn’t allowed to have an extra blanket. He said it was the scariest place he had ever been.

His father picked him up on the morning they kicked him out. During the long drive to my house, his father screamed at him for being a failure. His tirade was cruel and relentless. He accused Max of ruining everyone’s life, and told him he was “one step from living on the street.”

I didn’t want Max to have his car.  He was going to stay in a sober house where he wouldn’t need it. But the ex wouldn’t listen to me and brought the car over.

Max seemed traumatized by the ride home and I tried to comfort him. He was worn out and anxious, still detoxing, even though I didn’t know it. All day, I tired to console him with the fact that it wasn’t a catastrophe, it was only a relapse and everything would be fine. I kissed him goodbye when he left for the sober house. Early the next morning, he drive to a cliff and jumped.

During the first few days at the hospital, I would corner my ex in the hallway and tell him it was all his fault. I showered him with invective, hysterical with rage and worry and grief. Even now, I sometimes wonder what would have happened if my ex had just taken Max out for breakfast instead of berating him so mercilessly.

I wish I could kill my ex.  My sister has asked me, Isn’t it enough to know how miserable he is? As if that could mitigate my hatred, which is eternal, steadier than the beat of my heart, and faster than the speeding bullet that belongs in his head.

Three months ago, I wrote about how hard it is to accept being powerless. Now, I am a malignant mass of seething hatred for my ex-husband. If only I could kill him. It would be an act of mariticide, although I don’t know if this applies to exes.

I hate that miserable fucker. I called and tried hard to be nice, to project friendliness. I asked when I could come over to see Max’s things, hoping I could borrow some of his books. We always loved the same books and asked each other for recommendations.

But no! Still no. That bastard is like a character from a Dickens novel, a mean old man who lives to say the word No. His exact words were: “If and when I’m ready, I’ll let you know.” When I began to argue my case, he announced triumphantly: “I won’t be bullied by you.” (Repeat this in your head with an English accent, to get the full effect.) Nothing would change his mind. I lost my temper and he intoned  darkly:   “Don’t call me again.”

Last night I cried hysterically until I couldn’t breath, not because of the books but because of the situation of marrying a man who won’t let you see your son’s belongings, who has to try to control things even after death.

A reader named Marygrace sent me a link to a poem by Julie Sheehan that expresses the scope of my hatred with stunning accuracy. It is a singular gem that everyone should read and pass on, until the whole world can find solace in its perfection.
~

Hate Poem

I hate you truly. Truly I do.
Everything about me hates everything about you.
The flick of my wrist hates you.
The way I hold my pencil hates you.
The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped
in the jaws of a moray eel hates you.
Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you.

Look out! Fore! I hate you.

The blue-green jewel of sock lint I’m digging
from under my third toenail, left foot, hates you.
The history of this keychain hates you.
My sigh in the background as you explain relational databases
hates you.
The goldfish of my genius hates you.
My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors.

A closed window is both a closed window and an obvious
symbol of how I hate you.

My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate.
My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate.
My pleasant “good morning”: hate.

You know how when I’m sleepy I nuzzle my head
under your arm? Hate.
The whites of my target-eyes articulate hate. My wit
practices it.
My breasts relaxing in their holster from morning
to night hate you.
Layers of hate, a parfait.
Hours after our latest row, brandishing the sharp glee of hate,
I dissect you cell by cell, so that I might hate each one
individually and at leisure.
My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity
of my hate, which can never have enough of you,
Breathlessly, like two idealists in a broken submarine.

Nothing helps to soothe the pain like a picture of Sea’s big fat face.

The vulgar coat, the stupid Louis Vuitton bag, the painful shoes and the gratuitous Gaysian and midget are just icing on the cake.

I hate you, you stupid moon-faced bitch. But it’s good to feel some healthy rage instead of the kind that makes you want to kill every single person who might have said the exact word at the exact time to persuade Max that life was worth living. The bad rage is driving me mad.

I’d like to tell that stupid bitch and her stupid mom to shut their stupid fucking mouths and wallets but if it weren’t for them tonight I’d be stuck in an endless loop of questions that will never be answered.

When I get the strength and pull myself together, I plan to begin a thorough, groundbreaking analysis of what makes Alec Baldwin so despicable. Prepare to be grilled on this topic.