Victims of Trump Gas Lighting

I am exhausted from an undercurrent of anger cursing through me every day that I watch my fellow Americans subjected to a mind-boggling amount of gas lighting coming from the highest office in the land: the president of the United States. Donald Trump abuses us every day to feed his own perverted needs. I’m not psychologist, but I know what emotional abuse is and how gas lighting works as a tool of an abuser to bend victims to their will.

Simply put, gas lighting is when a person methodically makes his target question reality so that he can feed whatever perverted need is driving his behavior. The need might be power, control, ego, or money. Gas lighters are without moral character and conscience as they emotionally abuse their victims for their own gratification. They do it in a number of ways.

First and foremost, gas lighters are liars. They lie all the time. Their lies are blatant and they will shamelessly deny having said something even if they are caught on audio or video or email or text message saying it. Even worse, they will claim that everyone else is a liar and that only they are telling you the truth. Sound familiar? They are constantly insisting that targets suspend their belief in previously trusted sources of information such as the news media, teachers, historians, and even science. They use bravado and charm and empty compliments to endear themselves to the unaware as they keep insisting that they are the truth teller while everyone else, even with factual evidence in hand, is lying. Think about how Trump often tells his rally audience that they are the smart ones and that they are the true patriotic Americans and that they together will make America great again.

The unrelenting efforts of Trump gas lighting wears down his targets to the extent that he can successfully cast doubt on everything his followers once believed to be true, decent, and right. Look at the corrupting effect he has had on everyone who enters his orbit. This week he pardoned three convicted war criminals against the advice of military leadership. I feel sorry for people like Jeff Sessions and the now seven of his associates who have been convicted and sent to prison. He demands loyal but his loyalty is not reciprocal and once they have served his purposes, he discards them like trash. And if they wake up and leave on their own, he publicly ridicules them.

Like all gas lighters, he actively works to uproot our sense of stability and foments mistrust of normal channels of information so that he alone becomes the source of reality and truth. He has gotten Fox News and some conservative radio hosts to align with him and Trump rallies are filled with a cult base who have aligned to protect and defend him. I see all these folks as victims who are being abused and used and will one day wake up empty and full of shame.

The other characteristics of a gas lighter are evidenced by his constant need for an enemy to attack. Trump has turned public servants, Democrats, immigrants, and the media into public enemies. He attacks what is important to us such as news and information, the intelligence community, the FBI, science, immigrants, and even President Obama. The “deep state” is supposed to be out to destroy him and therefore, America. He tells his followers that you can’t trust anyone who accuses him of wrongdoing, labeling them as traitors or “Never Trumpers”.

Once his enemies are established, he projects, accusing them as individuals or groups of every wrongdoing that you can almost guarantee he himself is committing. For example, when he calls someone stupid, I think to myself that he believes he himself is stupid. When he calls for draining the swamp, he is really pointing out the swamp where he is most comfortable. He is so quick to publicly attack people that Republican lawmakers are terrified of him because his cult base will align with him against that person.

And finally, the words of a gas lighter will not match his actions. He says he will provide the best healthcare when in fact he is dismantling it. He says he always hires the best people, but look who he has hired. He says he will protect Dreamers when he is literally working to end DACA through the Supreme Court. His followers are not getting the benefit of tax cuts or the “easy tariffs” and the water they drink and the air they breathe is getting worse because of deregulation.

This week, the nation is fighting for its survival against a man hell-bent on destroying it for personal ego, power, and wealth. The Impeachment Inquiry is shedding light on just how pernicious this president is and just how much Republican lawmakers have become pathetically submissive to the gas lighter in chief. It is high time we impeach and remove Trump. And at the same time, we have to provide a way for Trump victims to redeem and rehabilitate themselves.