Abuser in Chief

Understanding the "politics" of abuse

My life has this point of intersection that I am only now realizing I should be grateful for, particularly in this moment. I’m a survivor of domestic abuse. And, I’m a freelance journalist.

Where those lines intersect offers me an apparently uniquely-informed position to see clearly the tactics being used by the MAGA movement. Without both of those experiences, I think the view could be a little cloudier.

Because of the abusive tactics I endured throughout the course of my 15-year marriage, I’ve been able to more easily spot the gaslighting, the projection and the outright delusions that the MAGA movement has used to manipulate its fervent supporters.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: MAGA supporters are in an abusive relationship with Donald Trump. And when you’re in it, speaking from experience, it’s almost impossible to see it. I didn’t. I was married to a man for 15 years who used the exact same mentally and emotionally abusive tactics on me to make sure I stayed right where I was — to make sure I was loyal to him.

He would do something. I would see it. And he would deny it. Trump does this all the time, even when video footage or confirmation exists of whatever the thing is he denies doing. That’s what gaslighting is. I didn’t recognize it for what it was in my relationship until I was out — way out. Because when you’re loyal to only one voice, if only one voice shapes your view and that voice demands loyalty (or else), it’s scary.

It’s meant to be.

In today’s current climate, if you don’t pledge your loyalty to Trump, you are not patriotic, you don’t love your country, you’re with they/them, the world will see untold disasters, wars of historic proportions will unfold, and crime, like nothing we’ve seen before in history, will ravage American streets.

Loyalty or else. It’s almost as if he’s verbally taking his fist and slamming it into his palm, hoping you’ll flinch in fear. Abusers bark, and they’ll bark anything that catches, growing louder, angrier and uglier as they grow more concerned that their moves aren’t working.

Projection is another tried and true abusive tactic that sows chaos, fuels mental manipulation and signals desperation. Put simply, projection is when an individual accuses another group or individual of doing something or feeling the way they actually do.

In my abusive marriage, projection involved endless accusations of cheating or wanting to cheat or something of the like. It got so deep and so intense and went on for so long that at one point I honestly questioned whether I had actually done some of the things he said and just forgotten about them.

I didn’t. But this is what projection can do to someone. When coupled with gaslighting, it can manipulate you into believing irrational things. Things that are not true, that are incorrect, that are intentionally misleading or completely fabricated.

In a political climate, projection is being used by the MAGA movement and Trump himself as a groundless tool to soil his opponent. On its most basic level, projection is the “I know you are but what am I?” phrase from childhood.

Trump has used projection, for example, to accuse his opponents of weaponizing the Justice Department (which he has outright said he will do), of failing to remedy immigration challenges (when he personally sabotaged a bipartisan reform plan) and, most recently, of not offering financial support to hurricane victims (when he withheld $20 billion in earmarked hurricane relief funds from Puerto Rico).

Projection is a diversion. So is gaslighting. Both are psychological tools that are often leveraged by abusers — domestic or, in the case of Trump, political. The tactics are cheap, effective and come without guardrails…in a marriage.

But in politics, one of those guardrails is journalists. The MAGA movement’s near decade-long campaign to undermine long-trusted and long-accountable journalistic outposts, which are supposed to act as a check-and-balance, as a conduit between the powerful and the ones who put them in power, has been remarkably effective.

Trust me, Trump says. Not them. Another loyalty request, not unlike a cult leader or a kidnapper or a domestic abuser.

I heard it in my home, over and over again. I cast aside friends with rational concerns about my wellbeing and his actions towards me in favor of maintaining my loyalty to him. It is the same thing millions of Americans have done in accepting the vilification of journalists and turning to a highly-effective MAGA propaganda machine that in no way resembles actual journalism.

Even lifelong subscribers to newspapers have been conned into believing objective media outlets are now the enemy, choosing instead to be spoon-fed talking points by overtly partisan productions. They’re not journalists. They’re distributors of campaign messaging.

Let me put this in simple terms.

The goal of an abuser is control. The most proven way to achieve that control is by leveraging fear. That fear is achieved by creating chaos and then demanding loyalty. Chaos is sown by a recipe that includes malicious misinformation delivered through projection and gaslighting.

And when the previously trusted guardrails are effectively removed, be they trusted family and friends or trusted journalistic institutions, the abuser is the single voice that is heard. Control has been unlocked.

It’s possible you pictured that sequence through the lens of a domestic relationship. It’s also possible you pictured that sequence through the lens of a society. Or, even the lens of history. If you see the overlap, you see it like I do.

It’s heartbreaking that more people can’t or won’t allow themselves to understand that by supporting the MAGA movement they have been swept into an abusive relationship by an increasingly less charismatic individual. Yeah, charisma is part of the recipe, too.

Then again, you just can’t see it until you’re out.

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This newsletter started as a way to help survivors of domestic abuse understand the inner workings of how they got to where they are. There is no deying the current social climate, so I’ve realized this newsletter may be helpful in explaining the politics of abuse — unraveling why the Abuser in Chief does what he’s doing. Let’s see how this goes.

I wrote this piece ahead of the 2024 election, recognizing Domestic Violence Awareness Month. I only shared it on Facebook. Figured it could use its own home here.

I also write a second newsletter that offers uplifting stories with its “So Clutch” edition and stories of women and their relationships with fear, risk and discomfort. You can find it on my profile under “Lisa Writes About It.”