Trump Gaslighted America
As a long-time domestic violence judge, I see an analogy, if somewhat imperfect, between battering by an abuser, and abuse of Americans by Donald Trump and his most ardent supporters.
One technique employed by abusers to gain or maintain control is called “gaslighting,” making false statements to convince the victim that what the victim experienced didn’t happen. Lawyers sometimes describe gaslighting this way, “Are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?”
Trump has gaslighted all American voters. His gaslighting has been nonstop since the day he came down the elevator and entered the race for President. The gaslighting that has come to be known as “The Big Lie” is Trump’s false claim that the election was rigged and that he actually won. Americans can be divided into three categories of victims of The Big Lie: those who are not fooled by Trump’s lies (mostly Democrats), those who are duped by the lies (mostly Republicans), and those who use the lies for their own purposes (mostly Republicans but some Democrats).
Count me as one not fooled by Trump’s lies. But I, and most Democrats, have been like spouses or partners trapped in an abusive relationship and forced by circumstances to stay with the abuser. For us, the abusive relationship ended legally on election day. But just like abusers who repeatedly file motions in court or who stalk their “ex,” Trump won’t let go. He continues to promote his Big Lie, even to the point of mounting an insurrection that has now gotten him impeached for the second time.
Most of the Polk residents who reportedly traveled to Washington recently to protest the election fit into the second category — those who have been duped by Trump’s lies, especially The Big Lie. As a result, they repeat baseless lies about the election and the riot that occurred on January 6. Their claims are unsupported by facts. Instead, they are based on false claims by President Trump, radical right social media, and supposed “intelligence” they received on the way to Washington.
Courts, including many judges appointed by Trump, have uniformly ruled, contrary to what the Polk citizens claim, that there was very little, if any, voter fraud. Besides their misplaced claims that the election was rigged, the Polk citizens have been so duped by gaslighting by the radical right that some of them claim that the January 6 rioters were imposters from Anti-Fa and Black Lives Matter. No members of those groups were among those arrested. But Trump supporters were.
Their allegation that the rioters were Black Lives Matters activists is especially ludicrous. Look for yourself at the photos and videos of the insurrection and count the number of black rioters you see. Do you believe what Trump and his supporters tell you, or your own lying eyes?
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that the purpose of the trip was to support an attempt to overthrow our duly elected government. The Polk citizens wanted Vice President Pence to reject swing states’ certified election results because that’s what Trump’s lies told them should happen. Pence correctly decided that the constitution does not allow the vice president to disregard the electoral college and substitute his own chosen electors. By perpetuating The Big Lie, Trump duped his Polk supporters into promoting a violation of the constitution in order to engineer a coup so The Big Loser of the election could be installed as president.
Polk congressmen Scott Franklin and Greg Steube as well as Senators Rick Scott, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy fit into the last category, those who are only out for themselves. Even after the Trump-instigated insurrection, these representatives and senators supported the coup. The two states’ rights conservatives from Polk County sought not only to orchestrate a coup but also to deny the right of states to select their own electors.
Steube’s speech on the house floor in opposition to impeaching Donald Trump was nothing but an angry repetition of lies, including The Big Lie, reminiscent of batterers’ gaslighting domestic violence victims. As reported by Lakeland Now, Franklin’s speech was an exercise in gaslighting sleight of hand and victim blaming, also reminiscent of battering. He said, in effect, shame on American victims of his and Trump’s lies, and shame on the victims of the riot at the US Capitol, for seeking to hold Trump accountable. He espouses the incomprehensible argument that the nation should, in effect, forgive Trump or ignore his wrongdoing in the interest of unity. Both these guys are con men who should resign because they pursued a coup for their own selfish reasons and because they gaslighted voters into believing that they supported states’ rights when all along they were for an all-powerful federal government and its President.
The three senators, including our own Rick Scott, sought to use their support of The Big Lie to further their ambitions to be president. All three voted to deny states the right to select their own electors, their votes coming after the siege of the Capitol by Trump-incited insurrectionists.
McCarthy is a shameless abuser, using The Big Lie to curry favor with the Trump base while trying to appease other voters by expressing dismay over Trump’s insurrection. His positions were all over the place as the public’s anger about the riot increased. Eventually, though, he succumbed to the gaslighting, and perpetuated it, by voting to deny states the right to select their own electors — even after the violent invasion of Congress. He doesn’t contrast well with arch conservative Liz Cheney who wasn’t duped by Trump and, unlike McCarthy and the others, didn’t use The Big Lie for her own purposes. She voted her conscience — against denying the states the right to select their own electors and in favor of impeachment.
The ultimate correlation between battering and the insurgency is violence. Batterers use violence to control their partners and then gaslight them into believing it didn’t happen or it was the victims’ fault. The violent marauders who invaded our capitol were duped into believing Trump’s constant lying, especially The Big Lie that the election was stolen from them. The rioters went from being duped by the lies to using the lies for their own purposes — by battering all of us, our elected officials, and our sacred institutions, while the batterer-in-chief hid in the White House.
Are there Republican leaders besides Liz Cheney out there with the courage to say, “I don’t believe The Big Lie”? Or will our democracy die, battered and bleeding, condemned to the history books as the grand experiment that failed.
