Why we love our haters

This past Friday, I was walking a blind friend back to our apartment building when we heard a commotion coming from outside the Metro station we were ascending from. Atop the escalator, a scantily rainbow-clad senior citizen could be seen waving a Palestinian flag, chanting something about Israel being an apartheid state (one that apparently lets the people it’s genociding have their own courts). The photo you see accompanying this article is of him.

What struck me was once again seeing someone in the LGBT movement agitating for people who really don’t like his kind. I turned to my friend and said, “The people that Hamas would throw off of a building first are out supporting them again.” She laughed and concurred.

Why do such disjointed alignments as “queers for Palestine” exist? It makes for great satire, but the thinking driving this serious nonsense needs to be understood. A closer look at other apparently contradictory alliances in our politics offers clues. Specifically, a look in the mirror might be warranted.

You see, the Right actually suffers from this same phenomenon. Not even 10 years ago, for example, most conservatives supporting the current administration likely would have considered its economic outlook to get rather socialistic. Today, they seem to have little to say against its interventions in the economy.

Also consider the postliberals. Their supporters constitute patriotic individuals who revere the American founding, but they are getting behind a movement that, in the words of postliberal Patrick Deneen, thinks America must be “founded again, now explicitly in departure from the philosophical principles that animated its liberal founding.”

(Connor Appelboom)

" data-image-caption="(Connor Appelboom/Washingon Examiner)

" data-large-file="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/IMG_3634-e1783969876813.jpg?w=535" src="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/IMG_3634.jpg?w=696" alt="(Connor Appelboom)" class="wp-image-4646453">(Connor Appelboom/Washingon Examiner)

To learn why the Left supports groups that contradict its values, it would be helpful to know why the Right does as well. The reason has to do with presentation. Trump and friends may not be consistent capitalists, but they do a good job portraying themselves as on the side of the free market. The postliberals may want to refound America, but you wouldn’t initially get that impression from how much they wax eloquent about the Founding Fathers.

There is a bipartisan tendency to love our haters, provided simply that the haters know how to appeal to us. In our culture, we choose allies based on emotional appeal and vibes rather than reasonability and values. Hamas knows how to use the language of oppression popular on the Left today, and so gets its support. Certain groups know how to be “based” enough to gain more support from the Right, regardless of what they really hold.

It’s no longer about what you actually believe; it’s about what you make people feel. We have successfully put feelings over facts. Some don’t even care about the facts at all anymore. Polling has shown that many will flip their opinions on a policy simply based on who is said to be proposing it. The vibes (and thus the proposal) are good or bad based on if Trump or the Democrats are behind the plan, not based on if it’s actually any good.

WAITING FOR TRUMP’S GOLDEN ECONOMIC AGE

Benjamin Franklin observed that “there are lazy minds as well as lazy bodies.” Letting vibes dictate our alignments is such a kind of intellectual laziness. Rather than learn whether another actually aligns with us, we associate based on an emotional sob story, or how good they are at talking up something we like. When we do so, we willfully warp our judgment before using it.

Feelings are deceptive and easy to manipulate. It’s why demagogues seek to exploit them. Don’t be a victim of that (or make the rest of us victims of your bad choice). Put the heart aside and use the head.