I wonder what drives people to this level of hatred. What kind of upbringing turns someone into this kind of hater?

Most of my perspective on politics and life in general was taught to me by my parents (although we don’t agree on everything), so I wonder if Kathy learned her bigotry from her parents.

Or maybe it comes from being unemployed - or morbidly employed writing snippets for advertising - and plain old bitterness.

Whatever causes it, she should seek help.

I think that’s how it starts. Shaidle’s fear of “others” is palpable on her site. I recall one of her fantasies describing a Toronto where no-one was her colour or spoke her language - it was a child’s nightmare of being lost. She presented “other” as something bad in and of itself - it was self-evident to her, and presumably to her equally panic-stricken fans, why this was an awful thing.

In Shaidle’s case specifically - she’s a pretty hateful (i.e., hate-full) person, for some personal reasons she’s alluded to directly or obliquely on her blog (illness, family issues, long-term unemployment, and other stuff). But she has a sizeable ego. And now she’s found herself a community that validates and applauds that hate. People approve of her. By flogging her “fury” in ever larger doses, she’s become a cut-rate Coulter, a small-market Steyn, to a self-contained, self-reinforcing little community of like-minded misfits. Like Coulter, she’s finding she has to occasionally increase the amperage to keep her readers stimulated.

She, and even some of her more literate supporters, mock her critics for their/our lack of “sophistication”, suggesting that her expressions of hatred are simply an editorial stance - she is Robertson Davies writing as Samuel Marchbanks, but using the same name. Mmmm….nope. I understand the nature and dynamic of a polemic - but polemicists are driven by a social and political vision. I’ve read and loved Swift and Mencken and Twain and O’Rourke for years. Beneath PJ O’Rourke’s mocking essays (apart from the fact that they’re actually funny), you can sense amused detachment and a thoughtful, libertarian spirit. Beneath Shaidle’s theatrical expressions of hatred (the ones intended to give her fans a frisson, and to “épater les Lefties”), you sense nothing but more hatred.

What drives her to this level of hatred? Easy. Attention, approval, a community, and the fact that, at long last, it’s something she’s can “succeed” at.

I guess Fear would be the best explanation - but then I have to ask - why is she afraid? I know what she’s afraid of, but why do “others” scare her so much?

For the life of me I cannot figure it out. SL and I have had these kinds of conversations before, but I never did comprehend why “other” means “bad” to some people.

Well, we’re all talking about her, aren’t we?