I think it is always helpful to give deep thought to issues such as these, and I always appreciate the provocative ideas you offer.
What I notice about Trump is that he is an abuser: he abuses women, little immigrant children, and handicapped people, among others. In his wake are a multitude of people who have been scarred for life by his…
I think it is always helpful to give deep thought to issues such as these, and I always appreciate the provocative ideas you offer.
What I notice about Trump is that he is an abuser: he abuses women, little immigrant children, and handicapped people, among others. In his wake are a multitude of people who have been scarred for life by his actions.
I have been in abusive relationships- I got out as soon as I could, but before that happened, I was counselled on multiple occasions to “cooperate”, “meet them halfway” and “compromise”, and was told I was somehow wrong and less of a person because I wouldn’t do those things. But I never understood how to “compromise” with an abuser. Does compromising mean that I should allow them to abuse me half as much, or for half the time?
America had been in too many relationship with abusers, it is time for us to move out of that cycle.
I agree with you that there is good in everyone. I have seen Adolf Hitler’s early paintings, there is one of a Madonna that is so spiritual and filled with love and light—as an artist and art educator I know beyond any doubt that it could never have been painted by someone without a connection with the essential goodness in his soul, and/or with the Divine. However, when that connection is completely severed by abusive actions, those of us on the receiving end of the abuse have a responsibility to our mental and emotional wellbeing to set appropriate boundaries…not only for ourselves, but for the abuser. It is not any healthier for the abuser to be unclear about these boundaries than it is for the abused.
I have to say that Trump completely lost any remaining bits of my respect the moment he ridiculed a handicapped journalist. That is abuse I wouldn’t let a kindergartner get away with, let alone an adult. That incident showed me everything about his character that I needed to know. I do not see any evidence that Donald Trump has even a remote understanding of what it means to be kind.
If there is dehumanization of Donald Trump, he is the one initiating the dehumanization.
This is beautifully and simply put. Trump embodies classic abuser narcissist and feral predator. And it’s formerly abused people who just get it in their bones, and raised my awareness.
From 2017:
“Like family members living in the home of an abuser our sense of what is normal starts to get blunted and deformed under the weight of abuse. The whole country is damaged in a way that won’t soon lift under the best of circumstances.”
It strikes me as odd that the first person CE plants his flag next to and declare that he won’t participate in their ‘othering’ is someone who exemplifies the extreme case of othering, in/out group thinking, zero-sum thinking, predation, projection, etc. certainly much could be said about polarization and taking sides, and certainly many many people demonize Trump and project all manner of fear and evil onto him. And we should discuss that on a psycho-societal-spiritual level. As a student of Thich Nhat Hanh I know it’s not in my best interest to focus hate and projection like that, and I do want to untie the knots of duality and is vs them I carry within me.
AND YET I can do all this while believing my own eyes, recognizing obvious harm when I see it, and not naively (or disingenuously) trusting/hoping that a very damaged 80 year old who has had his cards on the table for decades, and who stands to cause such harm if given power again, will discover in himself compassion that has never been in evidence.
Those of us who yearn for a ‘new story’ that transcends the binary we’ve been offered must be careful not to be gaslit. I’ve looked to Charles in the past as a beacon of sorts pointing a way out of separation. I can’t follow him here, something has gone awry and if you get it, you get it.
“It strikes me as odd that the first person CE plants his flag next to and declare that he won’t participate in their ‘othering’ is someone who exemplifies the extreme case of othering, in/out group thinking, zero-sum thinking, predation, projection, etc.”
Thank you, and thanks for the link...the text you quoted is perfect, and I appreciated this portion too: "Our sense of reality has been warped...We are like a woman who can’t admit her husband is an abuser. ‘I provoked him.’ ‘He’s got stress at work.’ ‘It was just one time.’ ‘He said he was sorry.’ You want to shake someone like this to open their eyes and see the reality of the situation. But living with someone with a damaged psyche has in turn damaged them. It is hard to emerge from." And one of the reasons it is hard to emerge from this is that the sea of toxic patriarchy in which we all live does not assist the abused in any way, it supports the abuser.
“Those of us who yearn for a ‘new story’ that transcends the binary we’ve been offered must be careful not to be gaslit. I’ve looked to Charles in the past as a beacon of sorts pointing a way out of separation. I can’t follow him here, something has gone awry and if you get it, you get it.” I feel this strongly and agree completely.
"This is the intimate side of the cold civil war America has been stuck in for nearly a decade. Life under Trump’s presidency often felt like being trapped in an abusive relationship, with its need to be hypervigilant about the patriarch’s mercurial moods. We had to endure casual threats of violence and unceasing gaslighting, a term for maliciously undermining someone’s sense of reality that became ubiquitous only after Trump’s election. It is not surprising that this dynamic was repeated in the families of some of Trump’s worshipers."
Thank you for this. I too was in an abusive relationship that took me too long to get out of. When trump was president I felt the same - but this time I was in an abusive relationship with my country. I’m 72. I do not think I could survive four more years. Yes, the DNC is corrupt and owned by the same masters, I don’t understand how people can think trump, who as promised to be a dictator on day 1, and who will unravel the already minuscule and inadequate protections for Earth, children, elders. . . who has promised to put corporate shills in charge of the country, and basically allow corporations to do whatever they want to people and Earth for money . . . is a better alternative? He has literally promised the destruction of the country and Earth! Yet, this is okay? People don’t seem to understand the gravity of what is at stake here. Maybe, because I’m old and I remember people who survived the Nazis (most are dead now), maybe I’m more able to envision the world trump is promising us. And I do not want it! The advantage of going for Harris is we MIGHT get a few more years to turn things around, to create the party, the political movement, and most important begin the transformations necessary to begin healing and restoring Earth for our kids and grandkids, and the species we ALL depend on. There is more at stake this year than just the fate of our country’s politics. Life is at stake. If we can maintain life then we can work to create, to transform, to evolve. If not, this experiment is over.
thank you. Fascism is real. Trump is fascist and an abuser. Russian propaganda is real and there were many Russian family backers of Elon's Twitter takeover. (and so much more going on if one is inclined to do any serious research). We are being firehosed with conspiracies and misinformation, designed to take our nation down entirely for the sake of Petro-nations. Sad state of affairs. Most discouraging. Hard to believe, which makes it so effective.
Susan, we are the same age ;-) .. it sure was a different world back then, wasn't it? Most women in abusive relationships didn't even know the relationship was abusive--it was just a part of the toxic patriarchy that we all took to be "normal"--as they say, a fish doesn't know it is in water! It took us a while to figure all that out... I totally agree with you: "The advantage of going for Harris is we MIGHT get a few more years to turn things around." I became much more excited about Harris after she chose Walz...even though I feel like RBG when she said that all 9 Supremes should be women, LOL--men have tried to run this country for 250 years, and look where we are now! I'm all for giving women a chance at it, I think women can fix most of our worst problems in 20 years...still, I really like Walz, I really like that he's a teacher, and he sure seems to exemplify the kind of "family values" that I think are important. And regardless of actual gender, he does seem to embody the generally accepted "feminine" attributes that I hold dear such as compassion, kindness, cooperation, nurturance, adaptability (more than Kamala imo) ..teachers are typically less inclined to be competitive and hierarchical since their job is to help and assist students, not compete against them. I am looking to Walz to help bring some much needed sanity to our country, in fact, my blue vote is really for him, although I will be very happy to contribute to having the first female president.
Kamala Harris is so far less bad than Trump it's ridiculous. Stein, West and (formerly) RFK, Jr. are all being supported by the GOP. (I suppose, RFK, Jr. now even more so.) I've been reading Harris' book and I believe she does care. Biden's FTC has been amazing on anti-trust (see Lina Khan), the DOJ too. We interviewed a DOJ official on our podcast who wrote "Plunder" about the crimes of private equity. Donald Trump does not give a hoo ha about breaking up monopolies or anything else. Who did he hire as his Treasury Secretary? Steve Mnuchin. "The Foreclosure King." His cabinet was and will be a den of vipers. (Oh, yes! Human! With their own views and perspectives. But who cannot be in power again.)
I’m sad to see that Charles has become such a “ true believer” that he wears a pair of blinders. Trump is his own proud propaganda machine. The so-called Deep State is every bit as much Republican as it is Democrat. The Deep State is Corporate Control and to say Trump doesn’t pander to corporations is simply ridiculous.
Guess what? That video of him making fun of handicapped person was doctored and put together by MSM to make him look bad. It’s fake. He routinely did these weird hand gestures during his 2016 campaign, and the media spliced it together to make him look bad. I don’t have a link handy but I read an article about it a couple years ago that explained it.
That is simply untrue. He cruelly mocks people he perceives as weak. Whether it's women menstruating or ethnic minorities, pilots shot down in Vietnam or dead WW2 vets.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no need to doctor any videos to make Trump look bad. The NY Times responded, : "“We think it's outrageous that [Donald Trump] would ridicule the appearance of one of our reporters." Trump responded in familiar fashion, issuing a series of tweets in which he admonished Kovaleski to "stop using his disability to grandstand". This is covered by snopes here: https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/07/28/donald-trump-criticized-for-mocking-disabled-reporter/
I think it is always helpful to give deep thought to issues such as these, and I always appreciate the provocative ideas you offer.
What I notice about Trump is that he is an abuser: he abuses women, little immigrant children, and handicapped people, among others. In his wake are a multitude of people who have been scarred for life by his actions.
I have been in abusive relationships- I got out as soon as I could, but before that happened, I was counselled on multiple occasions to “cooperate”, “meet them halfway” and “compromise”, and was told I was somehow wrong and less of a person because I wouldn’t do those things. But I never understood how to “compromise” with an abuser. Does compromising mean that I should allow them to abuse me half as much, or for half the time?
America had been in too many relationship with abusers, it is time for us to move out of that cycle.
I agree with you that there is good in everyone. I have seen Adolf Hitler’s early paintings, there is one of a Madonna that is so spiritual and filled with love and light—as an artist and art educator I know beyond any doubt that it could never have been painted by someone without a connection with the essential goodness in his soul, and/or with the Divine. However, when that connection is completely severed by abusive actions, those of us on the receiving end of the abuse have a responsibility to our mental and emotional wellbeing to set appropriate boundaries…not only for ourselves, but for the abuser. It is not any healthier for the abuser to be unclear about these boundaries than it is for the abused.
I have to say that Trump completely lost any remaining bits of my respect the moment he ridiculed a handicapped journalist. That is abuse I wouldn’t let a kindergartner get away with, let alone an adult. That incident showed me everything about his character that I needed to know. I do not see any evidence that Donald Trump has even a remote understanding of what it means to be kind.
If there is dehumanization of Donald Trump, he is the one initiating the dehumanization.
This is beautifully and simply put. Trump embodies classic abuser narcissist and feral predator. And it’s formerly abused people who just get it in their bones, and raised my awareness.
From 2017:
“Like family members living in the home of an abuser our sense of what is normal starts to get blunted and deformed under the weight of abuse. The whole country is damaged in a way that won’t soon lift under the best of circumstances.”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/in-the-abusers-house-3
It strikes me as odd that the first person CE plants his flag next to and declare that he won’t participate in their ‘othering’ is someone who exemplifies the extreme case of othering, in/out group thinking, zero-sum thinking, predation, projection, etc. certainly much could be said about polarization and taking sides, and certainly many many people demonize Trump and project all manner of fear and evil onto him. And we should discuss that on a psycho-societal-spiritual level. As a student of Thich Nhat Hanh I know it’s not in my best interest to focus hate and projection like that, and I do want to untie the knots of duality and is vs them I carry within me.
AND YET I can do all this while believing my own eyes, recognizing obvious harm when I see it, and not naively (or disingenuously) trusting/hoping that a very damaged 80 year old who has had his cards on the table for decades, and who stands to cause such harm if given power again, will discover in himself compassion that has never been in evidence.
Those of us who yearn for a ‘new story’ that transcends the binary we’ve been offered must be careful not to be gaslit. I’ve looked to Charles in the past as a beacon of sorts pointing a way out of separation. I can’t follow him here, something has gone awry and if you get it, you get it.
“It strikes me as odd that the first person CE plants his flag next to and declare that he won’t participate in their ‘othering’ is someone who exemplifies the extreme case of othering, in/out group thinking, zero-sum thinking, predation, projection, etc.”
-EXACTLY.
Thank you, and thanks for the link...the text you quoted is perfect, and I appreciated this portion too: "Our sense of reality has been warped...We are like a woman who can’t admit her husband is an abuser. ‘I provoked him.’ ‘He’s got stress at work.’ ‘It was just one time.’ ‘He said he was sorry.’ You want to shake someone like this to open their eyes and see the reality of the situation. But living with someone with a damaged psyche has in turn damaged them. It is hard to emerge from." And one of the reasons it is hard to emerge from this is that the sea of toxic patriarchy in which we all live does not assist the abused in any way, it supports the abuser.
“Those of us who yearn for a ‘new story’ that transcends the binary we’ve been offered must be careful not to be gaslit. I’ve looked to Charles in the past as a beacon of sorts pointing a way out of separation. I can’t follow him here, something has gone awry and if you get it, you get it.” I feel this strongly and agree completely.
From Michelle Goldberg in NYT today:
"This is the intimate side of the cold civil war America has been stuck in for nearly a decade. Life under Trump’s presidency often felt like being trapped in an abusive relationship, with its need to be hypervigilant about the patriarch’s mercurial moods. We had to endure casual threats of violence and unceasing gaslighting, a term for maliciously undermining someone’s sense of reality that became ubiquitous only after Trump’s election. It is not surprising that this dynamic was repeated in the families of some of Trump’s worshipers."
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/30/opinion/jan6-reffitt-fatherland.html
Thank you for this. I too was in an abusive relationship that took me too long to get out of. When trump was president I felt the same - but this time I was in an abusive relationship with my country. I’m 72. I do not think I could survive four more years. Yes, the DNC is corrupt and owned by the same masters, I don’t understand how people can think trump, who as promised to be a dictator on day 1, and who will unravel the already minuscule and inadequate protections for Earth, children, elders. . . who has promised to put corporate shills in charge of the country, and basically allow corporations to do whatever they want to people and Earth for money . . . is a better alternative? He has literally promised the destruction of the country and Earth! Yet, this is okay? People don’t seem to understand the gravity of what is at stake here. Maybe, because I’m old and I remember people who survived the Nazis (most are dead now), maybe I’m more able to envision the world trump is promising us. And I do not want it! The advantage of going for Harris is we MIGHT get a few more years to turn things around, to create the party, the political movement, and most important begin the transformations necessary to begin healing and restoring Earth for our kids and grandkids, and the species we ALL depend on. There is more at stake this year than just the fate of our country’s politics. Life is at stake. If we can maintain life then we can work to create, to transform, to evolve. If not, this experiment is over.
thank you. Fascism is real. Trump is fascist and an abuser. Russian propaganda is real and there were many Russian family backers of Elon's Twitter takeover. (and so much more going on if one is inclined to do any serious research). We are being firehosed with conspiracies and misinformation, designed to take our nation down entirely for the sake of Petro-nations. Sad state of affairs. Most discouraging. Hard to believe, which makes it so effective.
Susan, we are the same age ;-) .. it sure was a different world back then, wasn't it? Most women in abusive relationships didn't even know the relationship was abusive--it was just a part of the toxic patriarchy that we all took to be "normal"--as they say, a fish doesn't know it is in water! It took us a while to figure all that out... I totally agree with you: "The advantage of going for Harris is we MIGHT get a few more years to turn things around." I became much more excited about Harris after she chose Walz...even though I feel like RBG when she said that all 9 Supremes should be women, LOL--men have tried to run this country for 250 years, and look where we are now! I'm all for giving women a chance at it, I think women can fix most of our worst problems in 20 years...still, I really like Walz, I really like that he's a teacher, and he sure seems to exemplify the kind of "family values" that I think are important. And regardless of actual gender, he does seem to embody the generally accepted "feminine" attributes that I hold dear such as compassion, kindness, cooperation, nurturance, adaptability (more than Kamala imo) ..teachers are typically less inclined to be competitive and hierarchical since their job is to help and assist students, not compete against them. I am looking to Walz to help bring some much needed sanity to our country, in fact, my blue vote is really for him, although I will be very happy to contribute to having the first female president.
Kamala Harris is so far less bad than Trump it's ridiculous. Stein, West and (formerly) RFK, Jr. are all being supported by the GOP. (I suppose, RFK, Jr. now even more so.) I've been reading Harris' book and I believe she does care. Biden's FTC has been amazing on anti-trust (see Lina Khan), the DOJ too. We interviewed a DOJ official on our podcast who wrote "Plunder" about the crimes of private equity. Donald Trump does not give a hoo ha about breaking up monopolies or anything else. Who did he hire as his Treasury Secretary? Steve Mnuchin. "The Foreclosure King." His cabinet was and will be a den of vipers. (Oh, yes! Human! With their own views and perspectives. But who cannot be in power again.)
yes exactly
this is so obvious, yet Charles doesn't seem to get it.
I’m sad to see that Charles has become such a “ true believer” that he wears a pair of blinders. Trump is his own proud propaganda machine. The so-called Deep State is every bit as much Republican as it is Democrat. The Deep State is Corporate Control and to say Trump doesn’t pander to corporations is simply ridiculous.
utterly ridiculous.
Me too, Meryl. The handicapped man was it for me. And thank you for sharing your story; I can really feel the emotion behind your voice ❤️
Thanks, Keri! xo
Guess what? That video of him making fun of handicapped person was doctored and put together by MSM to make him look bad. It’s fake. He routinely did these weird hand gestures during his 2016 campaign, and the media spliced it together to make him look bad. I don’t have a link handy but I read an article about it a couple years ago that explained it.
That is simply untrue. He cruelly mocks people he perceives as weak. Whether it's women menstruating or ethnic minorities, pilots shot down in Vietnam or dead WW2 vets.
Yikes. I cannot fathom what shadow anyone must exist under to believe that mockery was fake. Please, step out into the sun.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no need to doctor any videos to make Trump look bad. The NY Times responded, : "“We think it's outrageous that [Donald Trump] would ridicule the appearance of one of our reporters." Trump responded in familiar fashion, issuing a series of tweets in which he admonished Kovaleski to "stop using his disability to grandstand". This is covered by snopes here: https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/07/28/donald-trump-criticized-for-mocking-disabled-reporter/