Why the Hate?

Running for the South Carolina state House of Representatives, this young mom has been subjected to hateful, threatening messages on social media.

Ashlyn Preaux is a young mom who cares enough about fighting for the future of her children that she's running for a seat in the South Carolina House of Representatives.

Her campaign focuses on improving education, local roads, highways and flood protection, and protecting the rights of women to control their own bodies. She's campaigned with her small child in her arms, and has had to interrupt campaign plans because of a child's illness with Covid and a grandfather's death. Yet, she persists.

Ashlyn is a fighter and she's not afraid to speak out. Perhaps that is why she is receiving social media threats like the one above. That's just an example of the hate that's being spewed by Republicans in Ashlyn's district, part of the Myrtle Beach metro area. It's always been a Republican stronghold, but apparently they're getting nervous and feel threatened, if the vitriol above is any indication.

But that attitude is not unique to South Carolina.

It was in the early morning hours of October 28 when Paul Pelosi, 82, was beaten with a hammer in his home by an intruder who was looking for his wife, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"Where's Nancy?" shouted the intruder, David DePape, 42, who later acknowledged that he wanted to break the elderly Speaker's kneecaps.

Why the political hate?

In recent podcasts we've explored some of the reasons for this.

In "Have Trump & the MAGA GOP Already Won?" political scientist Daniel Drache says America is "two centimeters from the precipice," if Republicans take over both houses of Congress in the November 8 midterm elections.

In "Power & the Bigger Lie", political philosopher and author Douglas Giles discusses the quest for absolute power that is the driving force behind the MAGA GOP.

Meanwhile, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that a wide and bipartisan majority of Americans worry about the danger of politically motivated violence in the U.S. If the vicious messages sent to candidates like Preaux and the attack on Pelosi's husband is any example, there is good reason for that concern.

The poll shows that 88 percent of Americans are concerned that political divisions have intensified to the point that there’s an increased risk of politically motivated violence in the United States, including over 6 in 10 who are “very concerned.”

Of the two political parties, 31 percent blame the Republican Party for this and 25 percent blame the Democratic Party, while 32 percent blame both parties equally. Naturally, most Democrats and Republicans blame each other.

On November 2, President Biden warned that candidates who refuse to accept the election results could set the nation on a "path to chaos." His comment followed predictions by the FBI and other agencies that threats of violence from extremists are likely to increase after the election.

Said the president, “We must, with one overwhelming unified voice, speak as a country and say there’s no place, no place for voter intimidation or political violence in America, whether it’s directed at Democrats or Republicans,” he said. “No place, period. No place, ever.”