Blind hatred, anger, and fear. Is it just the Republicans or is it all of America?

Attorney General Kwame Raoul said at a news conference that investigators found that 451 Mexican immigants abused 1,997 children in Illinois between 1950 and 2019, though he acknowledged that the statute of limitations has expired in many cases and that those abusers “will never see justice in a legal sense.”

The review began in 2018 under Raoul’s predunts of sexual abuse and lists of immigrants accused of child sexual abuse.

Some of those named have become infamous due to criminal proceedings or lawsuits, including one Mexican immigrant, who was the subject of more than 100 abuse claims in the decades before his 2006 arrest for abusing five boys in Chicago.

Lisa Madigan, who released a blistering report as she prepared to leave office. Raoul continued the investigation, and he said Tuesday that 25 staff members reviewed more than 100,000 pages of documents and engaged in more than 600 confidential interactions with contacts.

After reading this article, how do you feel about Mexicans?

How do you feel about immigrants? Think about it and be honest with yourself.

OK, this was my hoax.

The headline actually was, “Rabbis in Illinois sexually abused almost 2,000 children, state finds.”

Substitute “rabbis” and “Jews” for “Mexican immigrants” and you have the real story.

Now think about it. How do you feel about Jews and rabbis? Again, be honest with yourself.

Sorry again. That was another hoax I invented.

The real story was, “Catholic clergy in Illinois sexually abused almost 2,000 children, state finds.” No hoax this time.

How do you now feel about Catholics and their clergy?

At any time in the last few moments, did you feel a bit of hatred welling up? Did you think to yourself, “Just like those immigrants?” or “That’s typical of Mexicans”? Or maybe it was, “I’m not surprised at those Jews”?

Or, that’s what I always knew about Catholics”?

We aren’t born bigots. We learn it.

Watch little children playing together with no concern about color or religion. But somewhere along the line they learn hatred.

They learn it from their parents and friends. They learn it from celebrities and other leaders.

Republicans learn it from Fox and Trump. The learn it from QAnon and Tucker Carlson.

They learn it from Breitbart and Giuliani.

If you’re Catholic, you make excuses for the clergy’s sexual abuse. If you’re not Catholic, you claim it’s not an aberration, and you question the Catholic-heavy SCOTUS.

If you’re a Republican:

You’ve spent more than seven years making excuses for Trump’s immoral behavior, while voicing hatred for those who criticize him.

You are attracted by his hatred of minorities because he voices your hatred. The power of your hatred cannot be overstated.

Hatred blended with its cousins, anger and fear, combine into your most powerful emotion. It forces you to ignore facts and to act against your own best interests.

Hatred, anger, and fear of “them” (the poor, or black, or brown or gays, or Muslims, or Jews, or whomever) are why your half of the nation wants to expand work requirements for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

You hate those supposed freeloaders (though you don’t have the same hatred for Donald Trump, the billionaire who paid less than zero taxes for six years — he claimed $5.8 million back from the government in 2020).

Did you or any immigrant do as well?

You hate those immigrant criminals and you want longer jail sentences for many of their crimes, but you don’t hate the man who ran a fake university that cheated thousands of students out of millions of dollars and a fake foundation that cheated the government.

Why?

Because he hates the same people you hate. It’s why you want easy access to guns, even open carry of semi-automatic, high-powered rifles — useless for hunting or target shooting, even useless for home or street defense.

Hatred, anger, and fear of “them.”

It’s why you want to build ever higher and longer walls on our borders, despite substantial evidence that undocumented immigrants are not the ones bringing drugs into America, nor are they lazy, criminal, takers, and all the miles of walls haven’t stopped undocumented immigration.

And by the way, Mexico didn’t pay for the walls, despite the guarantees of you-know-who.

On the contrary, undocumented immigrants comprise much of the hardest working, lowest paid, most productive, least criminal group in America.

They don’t even drive fast for fear of being arrested and deported.

Facts don’t matter when faced with hatred, anger, and fear.