My Take: "Gaslit: June 16, 2015 to the Present" by Lee Richey 8/30/23

I recently watched, and for the first time, the 1944 film, Gaslight, with Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, and Joseph Cotton. Early in the story, I thought of Trump and his supporters, his base. The "gaslight" metaphor—by him to his base—was obvious. In the film, Paula (Ingrid Bergman) is driven by her husband, Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer), to think she is going mad by gradually and repeatedly contradicting her every reasonable and rational perception. Included in his psychological manipulation of her is subtly and repeatedly adjusting the gaslight lamps (hence the film's title) in their living room and denying it when she notices. (The metaphor: Trump repeating misinformation to his vulnerable and unwitting supporters.). Another man, Brian Cameron (Joseph Cotton), who was a childhood admirer of Paula's opera star aunt, recognizes Paula by her resemblance to her aunt, notices her anxiety at the hand of her husband, and investigates to determine the reason. (The metaphor: The January 6th Committee, and all the legal entities who have brought the four indictments against Trump.) The film plot is an unmistakable parallel to what Trump has done to his base. The plot is undoubtedly a warning to everyone to recognize, expose, and stop one who gaslights. Trump's supporters have not yet had the epiphany to recognize (much less heed, ignore, and thus elimnate) gaslighting. The reason for any and all criticism of Trump is plainly evident, in his words and deeds. There is nearly nothing positive about him. In a word, he is *unkind*, which is a flattering adjective for him. There is no negative adjective in any language adequate enough to describe him and his behavior. And his negative behavior should nullify public interest in any opinion he has on any issue. Indisputably, the moment that showed his deepest true colors was the Hollywood Access tape, on which he bragged that, because he was a rich star, he could get away with anything with women, including grabbing them by their genitalia https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/07/donald-trump-leaked-recording-women. The public exposure of that tape should have ended his candidacy for any public office immediately and permanently. The fact that it did not, that he went on to win the presidency in 2016, and that he is the current frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, is a terrible reflection on his supporters. There is *no* equivocating or sugarcoating that audio recording. It showed that he is not only unkind, but a vile, deplorable, disgusting, and despicable human being...period (to use his own infamous word, falsely affirming and exaggerating—gaslighting—to psychologically inflate the size of his inaugural crowd; though he was clearly wrong by pictures taken of his inaugural crowd size compared to Obama's larger inaugural crowd size, I'm sure many in his base believed him.). So the collective criticism of him is not gratuitous or political in order to frivolously denigrate him. He has brought the criticism on himself, by his harmful words and actions. When he "fights back" (verbally retaliates) in response to criticism of him, he is also gaslighting, since it is his initial verbal vitriol that sparks the criticism. The criticism is legitimate and mixed with incredulity—indignation that anyone would support such a mean, narcissistic, racist, xenophobic, unkind, repulsive, and aggressively hateful person, who employs hateful rhetoric to incite fear, meanness, and violence. There is absolutely no question that he incited the violent insurrection on the U.S. Capital on January 6, 2021. It was his words—after his false proclamation that the 2020 election was stolen from him—of "Fight like hell", attempting to thwart Vice-President Pence's certification of the election votes, that motivated his supporters to violently march on, storm, and breach Capital Hill. He was later found guilty of sexual assault to E. Jean Carroll. He has now been indicted four times, at both the federal and state levels. This is not someone to want to be with or around, much less elect (ever, and especially not *again*) as a public leader of any kind. If he is ever in the right, it is by accident not consistent wisdom. His only consistent wisdom is his malignant narcissism (the last two words used by several physicians prior to the 2016 election who considered braking the 1973, "Goldwater Rule", https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/psychiatrists-goldwater-rule-trump-era https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/damning-documentary-unfit-claims-trump-suffers-from-mental-disorders-a9692176.html to illuminate the danger of Trump). Everything he says is a reflection of himself, especially with the insults he hurls toward those who disagree with him and/or are critical of him. And his choices of words for insulting people are inane, devoid of any imagination. His words are completely childish. He *is* childish (and that is an insult to a well-behaved child). I remember his reaction to the man in Scotland, Michael Forbes, who would not sell his land to allow Trump to build a golf course there in 2012. In response to Forbes's refusal, Trump referred to the man's house as "disgusting", and said Forbes "lived like a pig." First, anyone is free not to sell their property and not even give a reason. Second, Trump's insults to Forbes were extremely unkind and childish things for anyone to say about someone. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-humble-scottish-farmer-stood-12915026 And my aversion to Donald J. Trump goes back to my first awareness of him in the news in my youth. I always thought he was a brash and narcissistic person. I think all one has to do is listen to him utter one syllable. It is nauseating. Not a desirable or appealing person in any way. If someone is observed to be this kind of person by as many intelligent people as have observed and written about his colossal immaturity and malignant narcissism, https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/05/04/trump-malignant-narcissistic-disorder-psychiatry-column/101243584/ https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/09/01/psychologist-backed-documentary-labels-trump-malignant-narcissist.html it is entirely unlikely that *all* of those people are wrong. The old saying, "If it walks like a duck..." Donald Ayer: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/trump-prosecutions-american-democracy/675262/ Chris Christie: https://news.yahoo.com/chris-christie-taunts-trump-1-053016501.html Maxine Waters: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/maxine-waters-trump-gop-debate-2024-election-rcna100207 Peter Sagal: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/08/trumpism-maga-cult-republican-voters-indoctrination/675173/ Michael Kruse: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/04/16/history-shows-trump-personality-cult-end-00024941 This is not a matter of partisan opinion, it is corroborated fact. And a horribly sad fact. (I wish that Donald Trump was a wonderful and admirable person, but he is the exact opposite.) Anyone who then chooses to ignore or minimize the obvious and blatant evidence of these observations—that Trump is simply a disgusting and unkind person—and continues to support him, needs to look inwardly and ask themselves why they support someone so obviously horrible. Besides the single divisive issue of abortion (which previously motivated many conservatives to support the dim-witted George W. Bush; "W" was at least not a narcissist), I feel that the deeper and tragic reason is something Trump supporters would be very reluctant to acknowledge or admit: their support of racism by backing the malignantly narcissistic Donald J. Trump. Whether one admits it or not, we may all have racist reactions to varying degrees, due to the relative but unavoidable unfamiliarity with global ethnicities. None of us can be familiar with everything, and we all fear the unfamiliar. It just depends on the degree of the fear, and our self-awareness (not self-importance, or narcissism) to dispel the fear. Self-awareness of our own relative racism, and our collective racism, is key to the elimination of racism. The more one is self-aware, the less one is racist. Though Trump's base includes some people of all genders and ethnicities, the bulk of Trump supporters are Caucasian, male, and relatively less well-educated. A thorough education illuminates racism, raising the collective awareness toward its elimination. As a prime example of non-awareness of racism, the national festering racial prejudice in the United States was reignited when Barack Obama was elected president, the first Black person to hold the highest public office in the country. One of my former teachers (who I will keep anonymous) said about the lingering prejudice, "The south has never forgiven the north for the Civil War." White Trump supporters are afraid of becoming a minority race themselves; his supporters of other ethnicities, diverse sexualities, or transgenders (Kaitlyn Jenner, for example, referred to Trump as "...stand-up guy..." https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4153302-caitlyn-jenner-this-is-the-first-time-ive-ever-been-ashamed-of-my-country/) are unwittingly and/or spinelessly along on his power ride, including with his four indictments, his lies to distrust the U.S. federal and state judicial system. Any picture or video I see of Trump supporters at his rallies are devoid, or nearly devoid, of ethnic diversity. His audiences are consistently and primarily White. That is not an accident. Trump's verbal spewings are offensive and disgusting to most anyone who supports diversity with compassion, intelligence, empathy, and most importantly, love. He derides minorities. Most minorities see that immediately and would never support him. However, anyone who is fearful of the fictitious encroachment of other ethnicities on their ethnicity, has probably experienced less (if at all) the joy and enrichment of meeting and getting to know people of other ethnicities; that is what interracial/interethnic friendships, relationships, and marriage fosters. By believing and supporting Trump, one is robbing themselves of that beautiful life experience—the experience of enjoying and loving life together, with more races and ethnicities, locally, nationally, and globally. In the movie, Barbie, toward the end, one of the Ken characters states to his fellow Kens, "We were at war with each other because we didn't know who we were." I think the root cause of any fear (including racial/ethnic fear) may be an insecurity with self-awareness and knowledge of who we really are and want to be (loving people and life, I like to think), individually and as a society. Gaslighting feeds on that fear and insecurity. Ever since he descended the escalator at his New York tower on June 16, 2015 to announce his first candidacy for president, and by continually tapping into and stirring the imaginary racial and ethnic fears of his base, Trump has "gaslit" his base into believing everything he says and ignoring their own natural sense of compassionate and loving reality. I hope deeply that anyone who still supports him will come to recognize that they are being gaslit by him (and by the current pool of Republican candidates for president), and begin to experience the natural phenomenon that unconditional love cures hate, especially before Tuesday, November 5, 2024.