I have a friend who has been referring to Trump as the Gaslight President. I’m fairly literate, but I had to look up the term “gaslight” to remind myself of its meaning and use. According to Wikipedia, “Gaslighting is a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity.” The term comes from a play and movie, “Gaslight,” in which a woman is made to think she’s crazy so her abusive and dishonest husband can keep a secret. I thought my friend’s term was pretty apt, and I’ve been musing on it for a couple weeks.
In my work as a small town acupuncturist I am in constant touch with the local zeitgeist — some of my patients are very conservative and some are very liberal, and frequently they are upset about the same thing seen from a slightly different angle. I respect all my patients and try to understand their lives from their point of view, even if I don’t agree with them. I have been convinced for some time that the majority of Americans agree on most of the issues facing us as a nation, but that we are divided by wedge issues, adroitly handled by professional divide and conquerors.
I don’t believe in grand scale conspiracies — I don’t think humans are disciplined or organized enough to pull it off. But I do believe it is the tendency of groups of people to move in generally parallel, mutually beneficial directions. It seems more and more like there are two very clear currents in modern American life: one current seems to most of us to be “true to life,” while the other current seems to be a kind of destructive fantasy of the good ol’ days. Recent events surrounding the latter view have been particularly bizarre, with the behavior of Trump and his enablers at the top of the list. It has seemed like something is coming to a head.
Of all things, it was a column by George Will that gave me my “aha!” moment. In one of his typically shrewish denunciations of people with whom he disagrees, he derided “trigger” as a term used by “the emotionally brittle.” And then I saw it. If you believe, as I do, that you can see a part in the whole or the whole in a part, then human affairs are the same, whether they are writ at a global level or at the level of the kitchen table. A powerful man sneering about the emotional fragility of victimized people has become a cliche on the national, political stage — “snowflakes,” anyone? However, at the level of the family, that person is the abuser, sneering at his victim’s injuries. The more the victim stands up for his or her rights, the more vigorously the abuser will react. Not in the form of defense, either, because there IS no defense, but by belittling the victim’s feelings and memories and attacking their basic narrative. In short, by “gaslighting” them.
And where are we, America, at this stage in our history? As the last few years have shown us, a strong plurality of us now believe: you shouldn’t brag about grabbing unwilling pussy; white supremacists are bad; and people in positions of authority shouldn’t be raping children. However, the traditional power and wealth elites of our nation built their fortunes and their influence on the backs of others. Without the extermination of aboriginal peoples, practice of human bondage and the subjugation of women, most of the great American fortunes would never have been made. So the Trumps, Kochs and Wills of the world don’t just find themselves on the short end of a “demographic change.” They find themselves in the shoes of the abuser who has victimized others for their own selfish desires, and whose crimes have finally come to light.
What is happening in America today is nothing less than a grand family counselling session at which little Martha and Junior have finally come clean about their abuse at the hands of Uncle Donald, and Uncle Donald is doing his damnedest to weasel out of it. The problem is, once you name it it’s hard to look away. People don’t want to harbor priests who rape their children, nor do they want to shelter millionaires who steal their savings, nor do they want to stand in solidarity with those who exploit and enslave other people and destroy the environment. However, this is still a new and shocking concept — people know where they stand, but they can’t quite believe that good ol’ Uncle Donald would do these horrible things. Especially when Uncle Donald’s (Fox and) friends say such nice things about him and say such horrible things about Martha and Junior, enough to make you doubt your own sanity.
This is where we are so fortunate to have Trump in such a public space. His Uncle Donald wears a clown suit, tells outrageous lies in public and brags about everything, including his worst behavior. If people can’t see the abuser in this caricature of a man, they aren’t capable of identifying abuse. This is the bind in which establishment Republicans find themselves — this Trump guy doesn’t just enunciate dog whistle theories, he tells you it’s raining WHILE HE’S PISSING ON YOU. Of course they don’t want to believe it, and so of course they end up enabling it. However, the cognitive dissonance is building and building, and when it blows it may well take the whole abusive edifice with it.
I’m old and no longer interested in a shooting revolution, but gee, it sure would be nice if people would be decent and humane with each other, would get help to those who need it, would take responsibility for their actions and would quit demonizing others for their personal problems. That sounds pretty revolutionary to me at the moment, but it requires acknowledgement of our current status as victims of ongoing abuse and exploitation by people who have no right to wield such power over us. It’s also going to require a lot of compassionate patience for those who can’t face the awful truth, but we don’t have to let those poor, broken souls monopolize the conversation or plan the family reunion.
Believe it, people. You’re being gaslighted. Not just in America, either, but throughout the Western world. Every Western fortune and much of its influence were gained by exterminating the natives, exploiting the colonies and extracting the resources, damn the consequences. Followed by lying about their aims, motives and the outcome of their actions. Who knew? Only Nixon could go to China, and only Uncle Trumpy the Clown could expose to an unwilling populace our uncomfortable position as victims of a shameful 500 year history of abuse.