I am not a hateful person.

Correction: I used to not be a hateful person. Donald Trump and his minions changed all that.

I hate Donald Trump.

I hate Mitch McConnell.

I hate Paul Ryan.

I hate Fox News.

I hate Devin Nunes.

I hate Trump’s supporters and enablers, in Congress and the media and elsewhere.

I hate them not with the cliched burning heat of a thousand suns, but with the intense freezing cold of an Antarctic ice sheet.

I’m not used to hating people. With the exception of one person in my past, for the most part, I never hated people. Rage is different — I spent much of the presidency of George W. Bush absolutely enraged. Rage is about actions, though: stop doing whatever it is and I’ll stop being enraged at you. Hate is about existence: there is nothing that Donald Trump can now do that will make me not hate him.

I hate him — and them — because they value lies above truth; power above people; their own narrow selfish desires over the best interests, continued health, or even possibly the existence of our democracy. I hate them because they are willing to humiliate or destroy anyone who questions or threatens to expose them, from the special prosecutor to a grieving widow.

They are evil. I hope they die horrible, painful, deaths. I hope they rot in hell.

Hating them is changing me, tearing me apart. Hate and its handmaiden impotent fear overwhelm me, freezing me like a rabbit on a lonely country road watching the headlights approaching. Hate is crushing my soul and turning me into someone I really don’t like.

And I have no idea how to change back.

I hate that.