Imagine the following situation. You are single. You meet a guy named Donald. Don appears to be very wealthy. He’s charismatic. He’s funny. And while he says some red flag stuff, you’re enamored. 

It’s the first time that you’ve ever met someone like him. Your friends like him. He’s kind of a ringleader among everyone he meets. He has no problem being open and forceful to get his way. 

Sometimes, he throws people under the bus, but it just seems okay. He’s just so much fun. He’s so cool. So, when he asks you to be his girlfriend, you say yes. I mean, how bad could it be? 

That one weird girl with blue hair approaches you and warns you that he’s not a good person. She said, “He’s going to hurt you. He’s already working on hurting me and he’s hurt others.”

She seems weird. You ignore her. 

The red flags were already there when he was on the path to the first election. Stories were trickling out about how he stiffed builders, how he treated Ivana, and his track record of loving hookers. 

2020 came, and America had a bad time wth Trump. We chose Biden, things happened, and then the election for 2024 came. Trump won again — though there’s growing beliefs that he may have stolen that election. 

Since his inauguration, our country has been destabilized to the point of no return:

Americans are acting like battered wives. We flinch when we open news apps. We question our sanity and how it got so bad. Yet, at the same time, both right and left-wing people try to convince themselves that it really isn’t that bad. 

It’s almost like he’s trying to show how abusive he can be. Don’t believe it? Here’s what I noticed. 

Trump has a tendency to tell people that anyone who crosses him “deserves it,” including Renee Good. He says stuff like, “She’s disrespectful,” as a reson as to why she deserved to die. 

If he loses, he doesn’t blame himself. He blames the Democrats for “rigging” the election. If his policies aren’t popular, he blames anyone but himself. And people eat it up and go with the narrative, even when it switches on a dime. 

Abusers choose their victims carefully. They look and see who tolerates maltreatment. It always starts with a sideways comment, a rude remark, or a “neg” to see if you are willing to deal with it. 

If you don’t immediately break things off, abusers keep dialing it up until they eventually kill you or just ruin your life. Once they destroy everything you have, they leave. 

Trump has been doing this throughout his political career. Whether it was taking Greenland because “he feels” it would be good for him, demanding a Nobel Peace Prize from the winner, sic’ing ICE on Minneapolis, or bullying his inferiors, that’s what he does.

To an abuser, boundaries are made to be broken. Trump is basically shouting to the world, “Just try and stop me. You won’t.”

Remember those $2000 checks he promised? Trump now doesn’t remember saying that. He also doesn’t remember who hired Powell or any of the other things that he did. 

He “forgets” on convenience to him. 

Oh, and his followers are also good at gaslighting. We have been told, time and time again, that we’re “overreacting” about things. People are still saying that we’re overreacting about ICE, despite the obvious insanity of this all.

Remember when the GOP kept saying there was “no war on women,” but now, Roe fell, women are being pushed out of the workplace, and there’s an active project to try to make it harder for women to get degrees in “pink collar” fields. 

The mainstream media? The media is trying its damned hardest it ignore the fascist takeover and avoid reporting until it’s pressed to do so. Even social media is trying to muzzle news from getting out. 

They’re also gaslighters. They’re really trying to make this seem normal. Nothing is normal about the way America is right now.

This is what the whole Greenland takeover is about. He offered to buy Greenland in his first presidency. People laughed at him. Now, he’s threatening tariffs and to take Greenland by force. 

Why? 

Because it humiliated him and we can’t have that! So, he’s making his message clear. Anyone who doesn’t capitulate will end up being in a bad place sooner rather than later. 

On a more micro scale, Trump plays this out with members of Congress. If someone stands up to him, he uses stochastic terrorism to turn his rabid followers against them. This is what happened to MTG. She had to resign within weeks. 

Others who were targeted with his ire weren’t so lucky. A senator and her spouse both died because of Trump’s choice to mouth off about them to followers. 

Abusers like to keep their victims isolated and alone. It makes it easier for them to control the victim and harder for the victim to escape. This often comes in the form of burning the victim’s friendships and bridges, perhaps without the victim even knowing. 

America’s reputation and trading vibe has been totally ruined by Trump. He’s been hitting tariffs on almost every country. He alienated the UN and NATO with this Greenland shit. He also wrecked China’s soybean trade — a major backbone of US farmers.

Republicans can break into the White House, kill cops, and set fire to things. As long as they are GOP fans, nothing happens to them. They get a presidential pardon and police drag their feet when it comes to arrests.

If you’re a leftist? Well, you can peacefully protest and still get pepper-sprayed, beaten, shot at, or even killed. Trump will tell the world that the leftist in question “deserved it” and was “disrespectful.”

Isn’t it always so strange how the “party of free speech” was threatening to kill or fire people who joked about Charlie Kirk’s death? Isn’t it strange how quickly they start screeching at you when you call them Nazis or criticize Trump? 

Hm. It’s almost as if they only want rules to apply to the other side. Yep, that’s how abusers create a double-bind. They want you to appear like the rule-breaker while they keep up the charade of being “law abiding,” all while they justify the rules they break. 

Ever notice that Trump discards his politicians once he’s done needing them? There’s a full list of people who ended up getting burned by him, including that Scaramucci guy. 

When abusers decide they can’t extract any more stuff from their victims, they move onto the next victim. Such is the way of the abuser. They never stop. They never learn. They’re always hungry. 

Remember when the Carolinas had that horrible natural disaster that wiped out a ton of homes? Trump refused to fund FEMA for the families who lost everything. 

This is far from the only time Trump did this shit. He’s also withheld aid from New York during COVID, withheld supplies from Puerto Rico during the hurricane that decimated the island, and withheld childcare aid in the Midwest as a way of enacting revenge. 

Abusers punish as a way of showing control. It’s their way of saying, “Look at what you made me do. You can’t survive without me. Obey me or else.”

If the Nobel Prize debacle wasn’t a perfect example of this, I don’t know what is. The GOP has a lot of histrionic, abusive narcissistic types of people in its ranks. And they are craving tons of applause — even when it doesn’t make sense. 

If someone else is being celebrated, the GOP and Trump tend to steal that person’s spotlight. They can’t stand the idea of not being the ones who “win” and it’s abundantly clear. The United States is mirroring that with the way we treat holidays that celebrate minorities. 

Did you notice how quickly the GOP and mainstream media clamp down on celebrations of left-wing actions or people? They can’t stand the idea of people seeing Biden and Obama as more capable leaders. 

So, much like a narcissist, Trump made a point of removing parts of history that celebrate minorities and left-leaning people. He also smeared Obama because, “How dare he get more applause than me!?”

Abusers are always in need of a scapegoat. They always find a scapegoat too. If you have a narcissistic mother, you likely saw one child become the Scapegoat and the other be the Golden Child. 

With Trump and the GOP, there are several Scapegoats: non-white minorities, non-Christian people, as well as LGBTQIA+ people. The Golden Child is white, male, and wealthy Christians who are willing to just listen to authority.

When one Scapegoat is genocided (erm, removed) from the family, a new one will often take its place. But that doesn’t excuse the Golden Child from the demands of an abuser too. Golden Children are expected to sacrifice their identities for the sake of the country too. 

Truth be told, ICE has become the “beating hand” of the GOP. They’re there to quash resistance, even if it’s totally pacifistic. Even if you don’t resist, ICE will likely want to scoop you up or kill you the way they did Renee Good.

Anyone who has ever been with an abuser might recognize this behavior. Abusers use law enforcement and lawsuits as a way to shake down their victims. It’s another way to maintain control over the people they use.

Trump might be the figurehead of the abuse, but the truth is that it’s not just him. The entire GOP, ICE, and the DOJ are now complicit. Voters are complicit. Anyone who sides with the abusers is complicit, especially if they’re still siding with them. 

Ironically, this is kind of karmic. A known phenomenon in history deals with establishing fascism abroad. Countries that establish fascist regimes elsewhere often end up having similar governments at home, even if they were originally a very left-leaning country.

There’s no question that the US is being abused by these fascists. The bigger question, though, is what we’re going to do about it. Are we going to allow the United States to “divorce” us? Are we going to roll over and let them collapse? 

Or, are we going to tell them to hit the road? Abusers only learn when people stand up for themselves and enforce their boundaries. Sometimes, they don’t even learn then. It’s up to us to figure out how to “break up” with America’s worst abuser: us. 

All I know is that the longer you stay with an abuser, the more likely it is that you will have to abandon yourself to be free. Take that for what you will.