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. T…
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."
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