When Donald Trump won the 2016 election, I remember pacing around my house in the early hours of the morning, disheartened for my nation and worried for my future. I recognized in Donald Trump then what has only been magnified and glorified now: the treacherous heart of a power-hungry man.
If you are ready to write me off as a rabid liberal, I plead with you to give me a little more time. I am a well-educated and intelligent person who was raised heavily entrenched in Christian conservatism; I worked as a registered lobbyist for a conservative corporation and the majority of my education specialized in competitive speech and debate, in which recognizing poor logic and argumentation became implicit to my automatic processing. I spent hours becoming familiar with news organizations and think tanks, and spent 2 years working in journalism and studying ethical reporting. I’ve also spent years of my college career devoted to studying the principles of ethics and virtue. I am a proud Christ-follower. I am also a compassionate researcher and work now studying the emotions of shame and pride. For the past three years, I’ve pursued knowledge of the therapeutic process and have studied deeply what is good behavior and what is manipulative behavior.
All of this to say, I am not blind. I am extremely privileged to have access to nearly unlimited resources to inform me, and I was raised with a strong educational background, all of which I owe to the tireless work and sacrifice of my parents. This privilege enables me to evaluate the United States’ political sphere from a complex and compassionate perspective. We are 16 days from the most important election of my lifetime. As this time draws near, I am compelled to present my thoughts on the current administration and what I believe to be Donald Trump’s embrace of authoritarianism.
It’s hard to know where to start with Trump, but there is one piece of work to which I often return. In The Emotional Politics of Making America Great Again, researchers from Florida State University analyzed Trump’s 2016 election campaign for emotional messages encoded in his working-class appeals. From a linguistic analysis of 44 of his campaign rallies, the researchers made three conclusions about Trump’s language:
He temporarily oriented audiences towards feeling shame or fear as a nation
He reoriented them towards feeling anger at the elites he blamed
He ultimately promised they would feel safe and proud if he was elected
These three observations are key to understanding Trump’s modus operandi and are crucial to recognizing how his demagoguery has flourished. Trump relied on the idea that race and class warfare were primed to erupt in the US, and used shame to both agitate and psychologically trap voters. He first forced Americans into a paradox in which they should feel fear and embarrassment for their country, but pride for the ‘true’ America, which only he could resurrect. His supreme candidacy for the job was sealed when he defined all of Washington and the 2016 political establishment as ‘elites’, thereby disqualifying even the most competent politician in the eyes of working-class Americans. In one fell swoop, he manipulated voters into believing that he alone could save them, thereby eradicating what America is perhaps best known for: an election process in which citizens have the opportunity to evaluate many candidates from an objective perspective. Trump’s message was clear, “Vote for me, or lose your country, your families, and yourselves.”
Against this apocalypticism, Trump had the perfect opportunity to heroize himself. Rhetorically, he first equalized his greatness with America’s - convincing the public that any action he made always benefited the United States, no question. In an excellent article, rhetorical scholar Jennifer Mercieca noted how Trump used his rhetoric to demolish detractors; he tied himself to the idea of American exceptionalism - saying that because he was president, every decision he made would Make America Great, regardless of what that decision was. From there, he was able to classify any political enemies or detractors as people who did not want what was best for the United States and did not want to promote its hegemony. This tactic was key to his agenda and has remained one of his most effective strategies. Mercieca also points out Trump’s frequent use of the ad populum fallacy (“we’re winning everywhere”), ad hominem attacks (routine, but his attacks on Carly Fiorina’s looks are infamous), and ad baculum threats (threats of force, see this article ). Mercieca also says that Trump uses a rhetorical device called paralipsis, in which he discusses a subject and then denies that he is talking about it. For example, speaking at a rally about political opponent Marco Rubio, he said, “I will not call him a lightweight, because I think that's a derogatory term. So I will not call him a lightweight. Is that OK with you people? I refuse to say that he's a lightweight.” It is clear that effectively, Trump called Rubio a lightweight. According to Mercieca, this allows for Trump to say things without being held accountable for them; after all, didn’t he say that he wouldn’t say them? Finally, Trump employs reification (treating objects as people and people as objects) when he needs to treat people or groups of people with less respect than is usually afforded every person to promote specific political agendas. Mercieca uses Trump’s language surrounding the Muslim community to illustrate this verbal tactic - in doing so, Trump is able to justify treating some groups as less than others.
It is important to note that all of these verbal strategies are blatantly abusive. When Trump heaps personal insults (ad hominem) and vague threats of violence (ad baculum) on his political opponents he illustrates an unwillingness to respect others and a proclivity for intimidation. Trump also has an affinity for gaslighting - the act of manipulating a person into doubting their own memory, perception, or reality. Cognitive neuroscientist Bobby Azarian wrote that “through persistent lying, misdirection, and contradiction, the gaslighter attempts to delegitimize the victim’s beliefs by confusing and destabilizing them.” Trump’s persistent message to the people is that they cannot trust what they hear from mainstream information sources, nor can they trust their own perception or analysis of his words and/or actions. He routinely accuses trusted media sites of deception, attacks any information that does not agree with his narrative as “fake news” (reminiscent of Nixon), and undermines nonpartisan institutions like his own government if they come to conclusions that he believes do not benefit him. In doing so, Trump monopolized the national narrative and groomed the American people to distrust anyone who dares challenge his agenda (including themselves). His use of paralipsis both diverts from his words and encourages the listener to question what they have heard. As a person who has devoted innumerable hours studying emotional and psychological abuse, Trump makes my blood run cold.
One of the hallmarks of an abuser is the ability to minimize the pain of others, victimize themselves, and deflect blame. A now-infamous interview of Trump with Megyn Kelly is a textbook example of these tactics.
We are all aware of Trump’s incessant bullying of Megyn Kelly during the 2016 election process. During a tumultuous interview, she pressed him on his tactics, and Trump responded by victimizing himself - what has now become a hallmark of his campaign strategy. “But in just about all cases, I've been responding to what they did to me,” he said. Though Trump’s bullying is overt to the public, he presents as someone who is simply, and constantly, defending himself from attack. Even when Kelly cited specific instances of Trump’s unprovoked attacks (including his unsavory comments about her), Trump was unable to accept blame - instead, diverting to vague sins of others and ultimately martyring himself. In the interview, he also minimized his negative actions towards Kelly, saying both, “Over your life, Megyn, you've been called a lot worse, is that right, wouldn't you say?" and, when questioned about retweeting offensive tweets about Heidi Cruz, “You would be amazed at the ones I don't retweet.” Trump (a) minimized Kelly’s experiences by indicating that they could have been worse, and (b) acted as if he actually did Heidi Cruz a favor by refraining from doing worse.
This is abuse.
Trump has also been accused 26 times of sexual abuse or assault. He has convinced his voters that either every single accusation is a lie or that these grave sins should not be used to evaluate his character- often using the same abusive tactics such as minimization, deflection, threats (he publicly threatened to sue every woman who made accusations but never did so), and ad hominem attacks (said that he would never assault Jessica Leeds because she was not attractive enough to draw his attention). Trump’s attitude towards women is routinely debase and chauvinistic (see the infamous Access Hollywood tape or his 1994 Primetime interview in which he encourages his friends to be “rougher” with their wives and has an inability to view his wife as a business executive (and equal), and compares his wives to buildings, as well as his list of both alleged and proven extramarital affairs, and other instances of sexual misconduct such as the Miss Universe ordeal). All of these occasions of sexual misconduct prove that Donald Trump is, at the very least, sexist and disrespectful and is, at worst, a serial rapist. This behavior is a pattern for Trump; every major news organization has a list of timelines regarding his dark sexual past. And yet, voters are willing to believe it when he says that every single thing is a lie.
This is a direct result of gaslighting.
Gaslighting is often effective because it disorients the target and then causes them to feel cognitive dissonance. When Trump outright denies proven claims, he disorients the listener to reality. When he convinces the listener that he’s a victim and every reputable person and news organization has ulterior motives, the listener experiences cognitive dissonance, in which they struggle between trusting information they know is true, and trusting Trump’s words. The result is a person who believes they cannot determine reality for themselves, and must therefore rely on someone else. Donald Trump gladly fills that role.
When I was younger, my future excited me. The presidential election of 2016 was the first time I felt very involved, and directly threatened by the politics of the United States. I was groomed not to trust Hillary Clinton, and so most of my family embraced Trump. But something in him made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I recognized in Trump the masked angry man - the facade that so many men wear. The veiled abuser; the one with a soft voice and fiery temper. The messy man in a $2000 dollar suit, the man who wears women like wool, the master manipulator. It took me a few moments to put it together, but I realized that every “botched statement,” every “lie,” every “statement taken out of context,” every “mistake” Trump seemingly made were actually calculated verbal manipulations, meant to confuse, gaslight, shame, and even enrage the voter. Trump is a natural, and he has proven it time and again.
Many victims of domestic violence said that they could not even watch the debates for fear of having flashbacks. Amidst the major-media coverage of Trump’s debate with Joe Biden, Slate released an article titled Donald Trump Is America’s Abusive Father, and one quote stuck with me: “Trump finds the very idea of equality humiliating. He can only abide supremacy.”
That is the core of every abusive dynamic: power. In pursuit of power, a person will do anything to achieve more, they will destroy their friends and fraternize with enemies, they will constantly belittle those in their way and make a habit of gaslighting and perverting the truth. The pursuit of power lies in the heart of many vices: greed, pride, and vanity. Relentless pursuit of power above all only results in destruction, with which we are all by now familiar.
In 16 days, Americans will cast their votes not only for our next president, but for our futures. I implore you to consider the evidence I’ve gathered of Donald Trump’s embrace of demagoguery and mass abuse of the nation. These are not the tactics of a selfless leader, but of a self-obsessed tyrant. I encourage you to consider whether or not you support this man to care for the future of your children. It is clear that Donald Trump uses emotional and psychological manipulation to convince United States citizens his is the only voice in America worth abiding. He's also repeatedly shown the United States both his true desires and his character. The evidence is clear. Are we willing to listen?
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