Tag Archives: authoritarianism

Despondency

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eisenhower

I’m beyond despondent and that’s why I haven’t been writing.   Watching the only country I ever knew collapse into fascism before my eyes is like watching a beloved friend or family member die a horrible, painful, death and being helpless to do anything about it.  It’s horrible.

Did anyone watch any of the Republican National Convention?  I saw clips from it and was disgusted and chilled.  It wasn’t like anything I associate with America or American values.   It was basically a glittery, drawn out version of those awful events where they go around a conference table and all Trump’s sycophants and enablers blather on about how perfect and wonderful Dear Leader is while he sits there gloating and soaking it all in.  And when Trump wasn’t being venerated, Democrats and liberals (most who want only to return to democracy and make it better) were being hatefully excoriated as villains and monsters who want to force socialism or even communism on everyone.  It was nauseating.

I don’t have the energy or motivation to write much else, but the article below I’ve posted a link to says everything I’m thinking and feeling, and is written from the perspective of someone who lived through the horrors of authoritarianism.  This may be one of the last times I can freely express how much I despise this sociopathic regime, because our First Amendment rights are being eroded in plain sight.  It’s every bit as bad (or will soon become as bad) as Nazi Germany, Assad’s Syria, Saddam’s Iraq, Pinochet’s Chile, Erdogan’s Turkey, Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, or the Taliban in Afghanistan.  At best, at BEST(!) we will become like Putin’s Russia.  I wish that were hyperbole.  I don’t think it is.

I no longer see any way civil war can be avoided.   Trump’s brownshirts and paramilitaries and ignorant cult members are itching for war.  They HATE us.  They gaslight us, dismiss our very real fears as Trump Derangement Syndrome, and constantly project their own wrongdoings onto us. We have been dehumanized, other‘d.  Peaceful protesters are now called terrorists and anarchists, but a 17 year old punk kid inspired by Trump’s “rough them up” rhetoric mowed down two protesters with a weapon of war and is being defended and protected by the Right because they think he’s a patriot.   These people aren’t going to compromise or give up their delusion that Trump is some kind of holy warrior or savior who is going to “make America great again.”   They aren’t going to suddenly grow empathy and start to care about the rights of people who aren’t just like themselves.

We have moved, as a nation, so far to the far right, that now American values such as democracy, freedom, and justice for all are now dismissed by Trump and his minions as socialism, or even communism. Communism!   We are a police state now, and it’s fast becoming normalized.

Living in America feels exactly like being trapped in an abusive marriage or inescapable family situation.   This is narcissistic abuse writ large.   But you can’t go No Contact, unless you are one of the fortunate ones who have the means to leave the country.

Yes, America has become one of those countries people want to leave.    But because of the out of control pandemic this regime refuses to do anything about because they hate scientists and experts, other countries have closed off their borders to us.   Trump got his wall, only the wall is being paid for by the rest of the world.

We must stop sugarcoating what is actually happening here.  None of this is normal.  Early in Trump’s first term, the German magazine Der Spiegel published an article warning us that Trump was a new Hitlerlike figure, an authoritarian fascist, and would establish an “illiberal democracy” (a euphemism for an authoritarian state or dictatorship).  They knew because they’ve been there.   We didn’t listen.  Now it may be too late to avoid such a fate.   I think there’s a chance we can still wriggle out of this mess, but it’s up to us now.   No one is coming to save us.

Facing the ugly and horrifying truth that America is now being ruled by fascists is our only hope.

Fascism.  SAY IT.

And VOTE FOR BIDEN.

PLEASE!

We Don’t Know How to Warn You Any Harder America Is Dying 

 

Impeachment as a Struggle to Save Democracy From the Pathological Cult of Donald Trump

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This important article by Paul Rosenberg addresses the pathological narcissism, psychopathy, and paranoia that’s behind Trump and his authoritarian and cruel policies — and details how he has transformed or is close to transforming every level of government to mirror his own pathology.

Impeachment is a good start to restore democracy.  At the very least, even if he is not removed, it has the potential to reveal the corrupt and pathological GOP for what it has become under Trump, thus swaying public opinion and support for Trump.  However, Democrats’ and the corporate media’s continuing failure to identify the psychological forces underpinning this pathocracy along with a desire (along with Never Trump conservatives) to “return to normal” (an impossibility) could ultimately make things even worse, even should Trump be impeached.

The complacency and silence of the American populace in the face of encroaching tyranny (compared to other countries under authoritarian threat, such as Hong Kong and Chile, where the People are demonstrating and protesting by the millions) is also pointed out as a worrying sign we might already be too far gone.

The parallels drawn to Stalin’s Russia and his takeover of Eastern Europe after WWII are chilling.

Impeachment as a Struggle to Save Democracy From the Pathological Cult of Donald Trump 

He was “just joking.”

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trumpclown

Some of Trump’s aides and enablers have been excusing Trump’s threats by insisting he was only joking.

Here’s a tweet I saw from an anonymous source:

He’s “just joking” when he says he’ll pardon aides for illegal acts, just like he kids about staying past his term

Trump himself regularly insists he was only joking when he’s called out about some of his threats to do things that are illegal, immoral, or cruel.   His flying monkeys back him up on this and then blame our side of having “Trump Derangement Syndrome” when we don’t fall for these lies.   This is gaslighting.

But Trump is a malignant narcissist, and malignant narcissists have no sense of humor.  They do not joke, and therefore Trump does not joke.   The only kind of “jokes” sociopaths and malignant narcissists understand are mocking or making fun of the  weaker and more vulnerable.   Unless you’re a fellow narcissist or sociopath, you will not find these kinds of “jokes” funny, because punching down to hurt the weak and vulnerable is never funny.   That’s why people with a conscience were horrified when Trump openly mocked a disabled reporter during his presidential campaign.   That one action should have ended his campaign on the spot, but that did not happen.

Going back to the “I was only joking” excuse malignant narcissists use to gaslight and mislead their marks (and make no mistake, we are all marks to this president), this is a very common strategy abusers use to control you and get away with their abuse, because it works.   I can’t tell you how many times my own abusers used this on me, and how many times I have heard other victims of narcissistic abuse relate they have heard “I was only joking” from their abusers too.

Another thing abusers do, besides gaslight you by insisting they were joking when they really weren’t, is they turn the blame back on you (blameshifting).  In other words, after telling you they were only joking, they will accuse YOU of having no sense of humor, being too sensitive, or too stupid to get their jokes, accusing you of having “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and the like.    This is gaslighting because it makes you begin to doubt your own reality and your own experience of what really happened.  You begin to wonder if in fact, you are too sensitive, or too stupid to get a joke, or whatever character flaw the narcissist has accused you of.

The fact we have a president who gaslights us daily and throws out threatening trial balloons that basically announce what his future plans are, and then covers up his cruelty by saying (or having his flying monkeys say) he was “only joking” should concern all of us.  We are all victims of this abuser.

I can’t tell the difference.

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migrantscolor

Above is a photo from AP News showing Central American migrant families rounded up and contained by US armed guards.   According to the accompanying news story, the federal government is making plans to separate children from their parents (yes, they plan to continue and even increase this horrendous and cruel practice) and house the children in former army barracks.   They are also planning to cut off or reduce all supportive services to these children, including English language lessons, recreational programs, legal services (young children as young as two have already been forced to represent themselves in court), and other services such as mental health counseling — at a time when the children are traumatized by family separation and need it most.

Not cruel enough for you?  Oh, it gets even worse:  border patrol agents are being instructed to confiscate migrant childrens’ medicine.

The cruelty, as it’s been said, is the point.   This is what happens when a narcissistic sociopath and his same spectrum sycophants and henchmen consolidate power and inevitably, as they always do, choose scapegoats (always vulnerable or marginalized populations) on which to unleash their hatred.

The photograph shocked me.   All the photographs from our southern border are  shocking, but this one stood out to me because I was immediately reminded of the old black and white photos from Nazi Germany of SS guards rounding up Jewish families like cattle (and of course separating parents from children, a common practice by the Nazis, which was harrowingly depicted in the movie Sophie’s Choice when the title character played by Meryl Streep was forced to choose between her young daughter being taken away or losing both of her children). 

This is fascism, in case there’s any doubt.  We are living in a fascist state with a fascist leader, and just as in Nazi Germany,  most people are either too afraid or too apathetic to mobilize against it.   Or they’re in denial and don’t think it’s that big a threat.  Or…they approve of it (usually justifying it with callous comments such as “they shouldn’t have come here” or “it’s a deterrent.”)

Okay, fine.  Let’s say you don’t care about the fact these are mostly poor families who walked thousands of miles to escape certain death in their home countries (not the “rapists, drug dealers, and gangs” who find other ways to get in).   Even if the parents are culpable (which they aren’t),  what about the children?  Did they have any choice in the matter?

The Germans were exactly like us.   As with Trump, only about a third of the German people actually supported Hitler, while the other two thirds either didn’t believe there was a real threat or saw the threat but didn’t think there was anything they could do.   Only a few people, such as Sophie Scholl and her resistance group The White Rose Society, dared to speak truth to power.   Hitler and the Nazis would never have been able to rise to power or killed six million Jews (and other marginalized groups such as Gypsies, homosexuals, and the mentally deficient) had the German people believed the threat was real and mobilized to fight back against it.  They learned the hard way, and now it looks as if we may have to learn the hard way too, unless we mobilize and fight this evil right now.   We are running out of time.

I’m astonished and dismayed by how little mobilization against encroaching fascism there has been in this country.  How few protests and marches.  People just shrug their shoulders, turn off the news, and go on with their lives as if nothing has changed in the past two and a half years.   Even the British turned out by the millions to protest Trump last week during his visit to the UK, and he’s not even their president!   We should be ashamed of ourselves.  Why are we letting another country do our work for us?    Are we really just a bunch of sheep?  Are we really going to idly stand by and look the other way while children and their families are being tortured and allowed to languish and die in the American version of Nazi concentration camps?

Below are two groups of photographs, each group containing the above photograph rendered in black and white and placed next to similar photographs from Nazi Germany to emphasize the fact there is literally no difference in the plight of the captives.   I can honestly say I had trouble telling which photograph was the recent one.

If these photographs bother you, good. They should.

Can you tell the difference?

migrantsb&w2

Montage credit: Jackie Starke

Credit: Jackie Starke

migrantsb&w1

Montage credit: Jackie Starke

If you’re suffering in these dark times.

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“Ever since he was elected, I can’t sleep, I can’t function, I cry all the time.  I can barely work. I want to ignore the news, but it’s always there, HE’s always there, always sucking me in like a black hole, and it’s destroying me.”

“Trump is destroying and dismantling everything near and dear to me.  I don’t know how much longer I can go on.  I’m back to smoking and drinking heavily because I don’t know what else I can do.  It just seems hopeless.  He has destroyed the future.” 

“Whenever I hear the stories and see the pictures of those poor migrant kids and their heartbroken families, I just want to scream.  What kind of society separates families?  What kind of society imprisons children who have done nothing wrong?   What kind of society makes it a FELONY to leave food and water for hungry, exhausted, and thirsty women and children who have walked thousands of miles to escape from certain death in their home countries?  A cruel, heartless, psychopathic society, that’s what.  I wish I could leave.” 

“I feel like I’m living in a nightmare that I can’t wake up from.”

“This isn’t my country anymore.  Women are being treated as second class citizens, or chattel.  I feel like my daughters have no future here.  We are seriously considering leaving for a country that respects women and girls instead of treating them like the Taliban treats their women.”

“I’m scared every day.  The anxiety and grief is relentless.” 

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m ashamed to be an American. 

*****

These are actual quotes from people reacting to what’s happening in America under Dictator Trump.   What struck me about these comments is how eerily reminiscent they are of the sort of comments people who grew up with narcissistic parents or are in abusive relationships make.  The dynamics are identical;  what America is experiencing is simply narcissistic abuse on a very large scale.  The main difference is, it’s a lot easier to go “No Contact” with an abusive family.  Unless we are pretty well off financially or have family or close friends in other countries to help us get resettled, most of us can’t just up and leave.

In normal, civilized, democratic societies, politics doesn’t dominate people’s everyday lives.  Before Trump, I could ignore the news.  It usually bored me.  I had other, happier, interests.  People in functioning democracies have that luxury, and can focus on their families, friends, jobs, hobbies, educations, and other interests.

In failing states, and in dictatorships, politics dominates peoples’ lives because their very survival hangs on the day to day whims of their often cruel rulers, rulers who rarely make policies that benefit them and are very likely to make policies that outright hurt them.

There are four main ways people normally react to a formerly benign government being taken over by cruel dictatorship or other malevolent regime.  I have taken the liberty of borrowing Pete Walker’s “Four F’s” of C-PTSD, because what is happening to Americans is very much akin to C-PTSD and PTSD.   Even people who support Trump and his inhumane policies are analogous to the flying monkeys in a narcissistic family.  They cope by identifying with the abuser.  Some may be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.  Trump’s confidantes and high level enablers, of course, are also flying monkeys (and Trump’s “golden children”) and are probably on the narcissistic or psychopathic spectrum themselves.   The rest of us are the scapegoats or “forgotten children.”

So, without further ado, here are the four primary ways people in failing states and impending dictatorships (and abusive families) react to the trauma (and make no mistake, it is trauma):

1.  Sell out to the political system (abusive family) and meekly succumb to whatever new laws and restrictions, no matter how draconian and cruel, are forced on them (the Fawn or Fear reaction);  

2.  Flee to another country (No Contact) if they are able (the Flight reaction);

3.  Numb the soul and mind through alcohol or drugs (there’s a reason, besides their highly addictive properties, why the opiates are a huge crisis right now: people are trying to numb their psychic pain).  It’s also why alcoholism is so high in certain failed states and dictatorships, such as Russia, Belarus, and Hungary.   Some people don’t turn to drugs or alcohol to cope, but are able to just turn off their emotions and feel nothing anymore (Freeze/dissociative reaction)

4.  Refuse to normalize what is happening, even though not doing so makes one extremely vulnerable to great suffering, and an overwhelming sense of sadness, existential grief, stark terror, and other unpleasant emotions that are part and parcel of a serious existential threat.  However, this painful awareness also leaves one open to righteous anger, a galvanizing force which can be the catalyst to changing a dangerous and toxic political system.  (the Fight reaction).

This last group are the survivors.   They are the ones who, by facing the reality of the trauma inflicted on them by their government, are most likely to create positive change starting in their communities, and finally in their state, and even on the national or world scale.   They tend to be the young, the people whose future matters the most, and whose leaders have so callously failed them in favor of their own self interest.

emmarodriguez

Emma Rodriguez, a victim of the Parkland school shooting, stands in silence for six and a half minutes, with tears rolling down her face, to protest gun violence at last year’s March for Our Lives event.  It was an extremely powerful few moments for everyone who watched.

One only need to look at the Parkland school shooting survivors (especially Emma Rodriguez) to see how great suffering can lead to great courage and eventually to change.   The same can be said about 16 year old Swedish climate change activist, Greta Thunberg  (please watch this video), who has parlayed her terror about her own and her peers’ future into worldwide activism that has galvanized young people all over Europe to demand an end to the use of fossil fuels.  Not only that, the adult lawmakers are actually listening.

gretathunberg

So, if you are feeling a lot of emotional or mental pain right now, if you are grieving the America you knew when you were young, if you find yourself feeling terrified or close to tears, or angry much of the time, please know that these reactions don’t mean there’s something wrong with you.  On the contrary, they mean something’s very right with you, and you actually have an intact soul that is uncompromised by evil.    Once you begin to normalize the “new normal,” and accept it, that’s when your soul has begun to die.

Use mindfulness techniques, visualization, prayer, or seek counseling to deal with the unpleasant and painful emotions.  Mental health professionals say their caseload is WAY up since Trump became president.  Many of them, who tend to be politically liberal, are as upset and alarmed by this regime as their clients are, so they will be able to empathize and assure you that you are not the one with the problem, but reacting in a normal way to something that is abnormal.

Every time you feel the depression, fear, or rage crop up, remind yourself this isn’t bad: it just means you have an intact soul.  You just need to know what to do with those feelings.

Write about your feelings, like I do.  Write a protest song.  Sing!  Scream!  If you’re good at organizing and are fairly social, use your rage to plan a demonstration or a march in your community.   Write letters to your representatives.  Register people to vote, or volunteer to work on the campaign of a political candidate you admire.

Don’t forget you will need to replenish every so often and do unrelated things to take your mind off the political situation.  Balance is important.   If you need a day to rest, or go to a movie, or the beach, or just sleep in, don’t feel guilty.  Your body and mind needs these breaks to replenish so you can be more effective as someone who helps bring about change.

I also recommend reading Pete Walker’s helpful and easy to read book about C-PTSD, Complex C-PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving.   Because that’s what we’re dealing with under Trump and the sycophantic GOP.

*****

Further reading:

The Four F’s of C-PTSD

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving (book review)

12 Ways to Resist Without Losing Your Mind

The Death of Democracy: Who’s behind it and why

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The Secular Jurist

By Robert A. Vella

As humankind marches relentlessly towards a profoundly uncertain future, there’s one political change most everyone agrees is likely to happen in the 21st century – the ultimate death of democracy.  Some insist that democracy was never a good idea, and that allowing ordinary people a voice in governance was foolhardy.  Some believe that democracy has outlived it usefulness, and that it is now insufficiently responsive to an increasingly complex world.  Even some supporters freely admit that the forces arrayed against democracy have become too powerful to resist.

Putting aside the value and effectiveness of democracy for a moment (we’ll get back to it later on in this post), let’s examine the four main challengers to democracy and their distinct motivations:

CONSERVATISM.  The philosophies of laissez-faire capitalism, Christian fundamentalism, and white nationalism, have coalesced into a generally unified political ideology throughout western societies…

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Things are getting really scary.

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There’s a reason why I haven’t posted in so long.   My PTSD is at full bore and I can’t focus. I can’t write because my ability to concentrate is shot.   I seem less able to cope with problems as they come up.  I feel constantly on edge.   My anxiety is unrelenting; it keeps me up at night and darkens my days.  I’m often on the verge of tears, and frequently close to white hot rage.    Getting through each day feels like a herculean accomplishment, but there’s no attendant pleasure in a job well done.   Life is more burdensome and the future seems very dark.

There have been problems involving my daughter and addiction again.  That’s bad enough, but I’d be able to cope with that more easily if my country wasn’t collapsing into so much rubble.   Lately, the destruction seems to be accelerating and the things that are happening are becoming more nightmarish and blatantly oppressive.  America has become a place I no longer recognize.

It’s not just Trump.   It’s the fascist patriarchy the Trumpian-retooled GOP has become.  Because of Trump, it has become a party run by a group of  all-white, almost exclusively male sociopaths who despise people of color, non-Christians, Democrats, LGBTQ, migrant children — and women.   Perhaps women most of all.   Their misogyny seems to have no bottom.

The slew of abortion bans attempting to overturn a law that has been in place for 46 years is clear evidence of how much this group hates women.    I don’t care how you feel about abortion, or what your religious views are, the federal government has no business making rules about what should be a personal decision between a woman and her doctor (and in some cases her husband or partner).    The fact that two states made no exceptions for rape and incest, even if it’s a child raped by a relative, proves to me the patriarchy cares nothing about preserving life, or about a woman’s emotional or physical health, but about oppressing women and girls.    The GOP is reminding me more and more of the Taliban.    How much longer until they start making laws mandating restrictive clothing?  How much longer until we are told what we can own and how much money we can have?   How much longer until we lose our right to vote?

The hypocrisy of these men (and a few women) is astounding.  This group is anything but pro-life, judging by their callous and cruel treatment of migrant families and children, their blithe lack of concern about the endless school shootings, their neverending attempts to take away our healthcare (including making pregnancy and even just being a woman a preexisting condition), their contempt for laws that protect our environment, and their unmitigated greed, hunger for power, and lack of empathy.

This is why our founding fathers wrote the separation of church and state into the Constitution.  Mixing religion and government never leads to anything good.  It corrupts both, and theocracies are without exception violent, hellish places to live, especially for women and people who deviate from the governing religion.  One only needs to look at some of the Middle Eastern countries or medieval Europe to see how bad things can get.  Here in America today, we have a group of fundamentalist evangelical Christians who have way too much power and who wish to replace the Constitution with biblical law.  They appear to be succeeding in their efforts so far.  Such an outcome seemed unthinkable at the time of Trump’s election.

We are falling behind other developed nations in every way.   As they move forward into the future, we are becoming an oppressive backwater, a country resembling a repressive Middle Eastern theocracy or a violent banana republic more than a forward looking democracy.    There’s been an uptick in police brutality, and no one does anything about it.   We have a president who chose an attorney general to be his personal lawyer and “fixer” instead of representing the People.  Trump stomps all over our Constitution and the rule of law.  He and his sycophants break the law on a daily basis and are never held accountable.     There are no checks and balances anymore, and the Democratic Congress seems weak and ineffectual, unable or unwilling to contain Trump’s destructive impulses.

No one wants to come here anymore.   On social media, I have heard people from other countries say they have cancelled trips to America because they are too afraid.  I don’t blame them.   There is much to be afraid of.   People who are able to are leaving, especially the young, who rightly see no future here.

I have a terrible feeling about where this country is going that I will leave unsaid.  But I think anyone who is awake and aware sees what’s coming.

We ar running out of time.  We must rise up because no one is coming to save us.    If we don’t, we are complicit in our own destruction.

Why aren’t we flooding the streets to protest this presidency?

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seoul

Thousands of protesters flood the streets of Seoul, South Korea in a candlelight march to demand the removal of their despotic president on November 19, 2016.   They succeeded.

In America in 2019, no one is doing much of anything to protest or resist a despotic, sociopathic president who is a clear and present danger to democracy and the rule of law as we have always known it.   We are in grave danger of becoming a totalitarian, fascist regime with the loss of all our rights and protections, and yet are content to sit on our couches and tweet our discontent or just blithely go about our business as if everything is normal.

Why is that so?

There are many, many more of us than them.  The power is in our hands.  It always has been.  All we have to do is use it, as South Korea did in 2016 to remove their despotic president, and many other countries have done (even countries where speaking against the government is a crime), and yet we don’t.   Why not?

Sometimes I’m most clearheaded very early in the morning, before my head gets filled with the garbage of daily life.   I answered my own question upon waking up this morning.   I decided to post my thoughts on Twitter in a series of threaded tweets.  To my surprise, my thread went viral, with many retweets and hundreds of comments I am still trying to reply to.    It seems that my early morning musings hit a nerve, so I decided to post it here too.

Feel free to share your thoughts.

protesting

Entrepreneurs of hate

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This is an important article for a dark time in history.

Please leave comments on the original post.

disorderedworld

Is it possible to transform politics around values such as empathy, solidarity and love? Many progressive commentators think so, and have laid out different plans to put these ideas into practice. But empathy and love seem in short supply in the actuality of politics today, crowded out by hate and intolerance.  In one society after another fear-mongering proceeds apace against poor people, immigrants, minorities and anyone else who is not part of the dominant group.

This article first appeared on Open Democracy Transformation.

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Why write about politics and religion?

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When I started this blog, I remember saying I would never write about politics or religion.

Four years later, I’m writing about both politics and religion.   Though not every one of my posts covers these two divisive subjects, a good percentage of them do.    Sometimes I remember the promise I made when this blog was new, and feel like a bit of a hypocrite.

But then when I realize how closely our political situation (and religion too, since in America, right wing evangelical Christianity has become VERY political) ties in with narcissistic abuse and sociopathy, which was this blog’s original focus —  I realize I made the right decision in tossing aside my original vow to steer clear of religion and politics.

In 2019, narcissistic abuse is no longer a matter that only affects individuals, relationships, and families.   It’s the modus operandi of a criminal political organization or perhaps group of criminal political organizations that is affecting everyone under their rule on a nationwide, or even a worldwide, scale.    What is happening in the Republican Party — no longer your father’s, brother’s, or even your own conservative, small government, ‘family values’ party, but a treasonous terrorist organization of white supremacists and religiofascists that serves only the wealthy, white, straight, and male — is narcissistic abuse writ large.  Like it or not, all of us, to one degree or another, are affected by it.

Those of us who are horrified by what has become of America and the cruel way some vulnerable groups of people are being treated, and terrified by what Trump and his sociopathic regime may do to us next are most likely suffering some form of PTSD.    If we already were victims of narcissistic abuse, we are likely suffering a relapse of Complex PTSD (C-PTSD).  I know I sure as hell am.   Most days I feel like I’m just barely hanging on.   It’s hard to think or to function.   I feel constant anxiety, and sometimes depression.  When I’m not anxious or depressed, I’m in a white hot rage.   Peace of mind is a thing of the past, since I never know what fresh hell each new day will bring.    I know I’m far from alone.

Living in Trump’s America without being part of his cultish base feels a lot like waiting for your abusive husband to get home and not knowing whether he’ll beat you up again or mercifully just ignore you tonight.   It feels like being a scapegoated child in a family of narcissists, who blame you for everything that goes wrong, even though you don’t understand what you did wrong (and probably didn’t do anything).   You’re always anxious and on edge, always waiting for the “other shoe to drop.”  Narcissists like to keep you off balance, and Trump and his sycophants like to create the sort of chaos and say the kinds of things that keep us all off balance and constantly on edge.   What he’s doing isn’t any different than what your narcissistic mother did to you, and it has the same deleterious effect on your mental health.

Since 2016, mental health professionals say their caseloads are increasing, and most new caseloads are people suffering PTSD because of the trauma Trump is causing them.  Even if his cruel and hate filled policies don’t affect you or your loved ones directly, the threat of violence, the taking away of benefits and freedoms, and the mocking hatred is always there, like a black heaviness in the room.  The toxic rhetoric he and his base use against anyone who doesn’t act, believe and look the way they do never goes away, and it’s getting worse.  Now he’s goading his base (through his Twitter account) to actual violence against anyone who dares to criticize him or his policies.   I have no doubt he’s trying to rile up the police, the biker gangs, the gun nuts, and others to form a militia against liberals and progressives (and even moderates), truthtellers, and the lovers of democracy.    Make no mistake:  he’s gathering an army of brownshirts to terrorize, attack, and even kill anyone who isn’t on his side.

My point is that politics and religion in 2019 is very much tied up with narcissistic abuse and sociopathy, and to not address the fact this problem is now happening on a nationwide or even worldwide scale (and perhaps has been for a long time) is to deny that it is happening at all.  To not write about current events in light of narcissism and sociopathy would be irresponsible.

My first goal in writing about these issues is to educate and make those who might not have connected this presidency with the problem of narcissistic abuse more aware that it is happening.  With awareness and education, people are more equipped to see what is happening, when it’s happening, the various “tricks” they use (gaslighting, lying, blame shifting, demonization of groups, black and white thinking, employing “flying monkeys”, etc.) and take appropriate action or defense measures to guard against it.

Since most of us can’t go “no contact” with Trump (unless we have the means to emigrate to another country), we must stay vigilant and aware of the myriad ways he and his “flying monkeys” abuse us (he abuses his own base too, but they are in denial, like the cult members they are).  At the same time, we can’t forget about our families, our friends, and try to enjoy our lives as best we can.   The little things in life matter too.   We can (and must) take breaks from the news, and focus on more positive things, and try to find joy wherever we can.

Remember that even in the most depressing and darkest of circumstances, it is possible to find joy.     Read The Diary of Anne Frank for inspiration and strength.    If you believe in God, pray.   If you don’t, do positive things for yourself and others.    Give (and get) lots of hugs.  Volunteer.  Adopt an animal.   Do good things in your community.   Everything you do makes a difference.

Don’t put on horse blinders and pretend what’s happening isn’t, but in the midst of all the black chaos, take time out for joy and friendship.  Also remember that Trump is an angry, lost soul who has neither joy or true friends and never will.   You are better than that and that’s why he hates us.

The other reason I write about politics and religion is because it’s a way to personally cope with what’s happening.   Just as I wrote about my own abuse as a survivor of a narcissistic family and emotionally abusive marriage in order to heal, it’s also necessary for me to write about the ways I feel abused by Trump and his regime in order to keep my sanity.   Otherwise I might completely give up hope and put a bullet in my head.

*****

Further reading:

Narcissistic Abuse in Trumpistan

We Need a Lot More Awareness About Narcissism and Sociopathy