Waking up with an abuser, Waking up to Trump
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
I’m a big believer in this Maya Angelou quote. But it’s extremely difficult to follow. Especially when you’re an optimist and tend to see the good in people. Especially when your family and culture train you not to see the predators.
I know, because I’m good at self-delusion and being oblivious to predators. Like everyone else, I assume other people are like me. In my case, that means being awkward or careless sometimes, and occasionally an asshole, but mostly sincere, straightforward, well-intended, and empathetic.
So, like many empaths and children of dysfunctional families, I used to give people multiple passes for their bad behavior. I fell into the roles prescribed by my culture: the ever-patient fixer, the over-invested responsibility-taker, the tenacious never-giving-upper, the virtuous high-road-taker, the optimistic this-time-it-will-be-different believer. I bought the myths that if I performed these roles perfectly, I would finally — finally — earn the love, recognition, support, and safety I craved like oxygen.
But I never earned those rewards from my immature, narcissistic parents. Nor from my now-ex husband and so many other partners. Nor from toxic jobs. Nor some friends.
But now I finally — finally — get that I never will. Now I believe who they are.
I remember the moment when I “woke up” to who my husband was. It was spring of 2002, and we were two years into a miserable marriage. He joined me in the kitchen where I was preparing dinner one weekday evening, and, with a sheepish look on his face, delivered the bad news: he’d flunked his classes that semester. Again.
I suddenly heard and saw a huge glass wall shatter in my mind. I’d deferred my graduate school admission for this man. I’d left a well-paying job I loved, a ton of friends, and a city I adored for this man. I’d supported him financially. I’d tolerated his broken promises, his constant blaming and deflecting, his neglectful and irresponsible choices, and his disrespect.
I saw then that he wasn’t going to change. Months later, I left for graduate school — and left him.
I also remember when I “woke up” to the reality of who my father is. That waking was less dramatic than the shattering of my marriage, but, like my marriage, the signs were there all along. It was December 2021, and we were dining out at the end of one of the worst years of my life. Not only did my father spend dinner regaling me with his troubles without once asking about me, he shared alarming anecdotes about his own marriage I’d never heard before.
Given this new information, I decided to defer my needs in the interest of what sounded like a breakthrough for my father. Drunk on what I now realize was the narcissistic “supply” I’d just fed him, he left dinner energized, and even forgot to pay the bill. In the following days I broke with my habitual pattern of mobilizing support and resources to alleviate his crisis, but when I checked in a week later, he was back to status quo, superficially praising his wife.
He’d dumped on me when I was fragile, then went blithely back to living his life. Eighteen months later, my stepmother died by suicide one Sunday morning. In the horrific aftermath, I saw even more clearly the depths of my father’s selfishness, superficiality, and chilling detachment.
I finally saw he’s not going to change. Now I only have infrequent, limited contact with him. Anything more is neither safe nor healthy for me.
Today, I’ve woken up once more. As with my ex-husband and my father, the signs were always there, and parts of me always knew. But now I really see who my countrymen are. Now I realize we’re not going to change.
Today, I’ve woken up once more. As with my ex-husband and my father, the signs were always there, and parts of me always knew. But now I really see who my countrymen are. Now I realize we’re not going to change.
Five million more Americans voted for Donald Trump than Kamala Harris. He won the Electoral College and the popular vote, robustly and decidedly. It wasn’t even close. In many locations, Trump exceeded his performance in previous elections. He is the first Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years. As of this writing, conservatives also control the Senate, and the House of Representatives is yet to be decided.
My countrymen said “yes” to Donald Trump, JD Vance, and Elon Musk. Significantly higher numbers of Latinos, black men, white women, and young people said “yes” to MAGA Trumpism than before. We voted “yes” to money, power, misogyny, white supremacy, homophobia, xenophobia, christofascism, fraud, lies, rape, abuse, selfishness, greed, narcissism, and arrogance.
We showed our ass. This is who we are.
I think the chronic surprise and incredulity many of us feel is part of the problem. We can’t believe it when a presidential candidate “jokes” about Mexicans and women and gets away with it. We can’t believe it when Mitch McConnell refuses to give Merrick Garland a hearing a year before an election, yet pushes Amy Coney Barrett through eight days before the next one. We can’t believe it when Brett Kavanaugh gets confirmed to SCOTUS, or when that court overturns Roe v. Wade like they said they would. We can’t believe it when a mob invades the Capitol, trying to overturn an election. Now we can’t believe that a black woman as brilliant and well-qualified as Kamala Harris would lose to Donald Trump.
But like I’ve done with the predators in my life, perhaps we’ve refused to see what’s right in front of us. The Right has been organized, strategic, and focused for half a century. Trump has been a political player for nearly a decade. There’s abundant information explaining his popularity (work by Russell Hochschild and Haidt, for instance). Yet even today, I’ve heard liberals denigrating Trump supporters (again) as stupid, selfish, narrowminded, and ignorant about what’s in their interest.
We’re not listening. We’re not paying attention. For decades, we’ve ignored, disenfranchised, and dismissed rural, working class, and religious folks. We’ve allowed the Right to woo and convert them. We’ve allowed the Right to set the rhetoric, play offense, and violate crucial rules and norms. We’ve allowed them to cow us into compromise and cordiality when we should have been ferocious and bold on behalf of all marginalized people — not just city-dwelling, college-educated people of color and queers. Chris Hedges summed it up brilliantly today by identifying the despair that accompanies our decay, which has logically pushed more people towards cult leaders like Trump.
This is who we are. We are a nation built on violence and inequality. The system isn’t broken — it’s doing exactly what it was designed to do.
This is who we are. We are a nation built on violence and inequality. The system isn’t broken — it’s doing exactly what it was designed to do.
We are not a country who respects the rule of law. We violate treaties — ask Native Americans. We invade and annex sovereign nations — ask Mexico and Hawai’i. We topple democratically elected leaders — ask Chile and half of Latin America. We invade countries on false pretenses (Iraq) and sit on our hands while the powerful obliterate an entire people (Gaza).
We are not a humane country. We expect people to make it on their own and blame them when they don’t. We care for the vulnerable only when it serves our economic interests and feeds the machine. The business of the United States is business, which is why we’re so successful in a system that worships money. Welcoming immigrants? Allowing women in the workplace? Including black and brown people in society? Granting queer folks the right to marry? My ex-husband and father made these same moves — occasional bursts of kindness that offer hope and the illusion of change. Flowers after another soul-crushing fight. An adoring speech in front of an audience. A teary phone call speaking words we always wanted to hear.
Then back to the status quo. Back to us doubling down on our “good” behaviors and gaslighting ourselves with “hope”.
MAGA Trumpers think telling the whole truth about our country is un-American, just like narcissists and abusers think telling the whole truth about what happens behind closed doors is disloyal. We’re taught that it’s unbecoming to “air dirty laundry” or speak ill of the dead because, despite what our TV shows preach, we protect predators when we think they’ll protect us.
Telling the whole truth doesn’t mean the United States has no redeeming qualities. It doesn’t mean there aren’t millions of good Americans — even on “the other side”. For 200 years, we’ve attracted immigrants from around the world because we offer a compelling story and we’re exceptional at marketing. Most of us believe in our stated ideals and the “dream” we sell.
However, that dream has only ever been attainable by a select few blessed with existing resources or good luck. Especially now. The truth is we’re not ever going to be “great” again like we were. The short burst of broad prosperity many enjoyed in the 20th century was an anomaly made possible by war, gender inequities, and Jim Crow. In the 21st century, we live in a massively complex global economy powered by the unprecedented — and temporary — access to cheap fossil fuels. We rely on a six continent supply chain. Our “greatness” has come at enormous cost to other peoples, cultures, languages, and ways of life — not to mention other species and the entire ecosystem. We created an unsustainable civilization rooted in insane and inhumane belief systems. Led by the United States, humans are already approaching planetary limits through resource consumption and have already caused irreversible damage to the biosphere life depends on.
“The economy” and “inflation” are desperate yet understandable reasons to vote for an authoritarian demagogue. They’re also shitty reasons. This planet deserves better. Our great-grandchildren and their grandchildren deserve better.
We just chose to be shitty ancestors. All for a president who can’t singlehandedly control the economy or inflation. A president who can’t change the material reality of our planet, the entangled nature of our economy, or the deep underpinnings of our civilization. A president who wouldn’t even if he could.
See, villains aren’t as obvious as they are in the movies. They’re not stupid. Dangerous people are subtle, because otherwise we wouldn’t fall for them. If predators led with bared teeth and drawn claws we wouldn’t lay down at their feet and expose our bellies. Whether they do it on purpose or not is irrelevant.
Dangerous people are subtle, because otherwise we wouldn’t fall for them. If predators led with bared teeth and drawn claws we wouldn’t lay down at their feet and expose our bellies. Whether they do it on purpose or not is irrelevant.
True villains are like Sauron — they flatter us, and prey on our weaknesses and unrealized dreams. They sow our destruction then sell us salvation. They manipulate us into thinking their self-serving goals serve us or were our idea in the first place.
Just like Trump. Even the Bible his supporters revere warns about leaders like him. But they can’t see it, won’t see it, or don’t care.
Good people need to grow out of the idea that good people can’t also be fierce and shrewd. We can be compassionate yet intolerant of bad behavior. We can be kind yet firm. We can have integrity yet be discerning and strategic. We can hold high ideals yet execute with scrappy agility. In fact, we must make this mindset shift if we want to survive. Predators exist, and they neither respect nor follow our rules. Our stubborn naïvete invites annihilation.
I think I’ve mostly made that mindset shift, but I’ve lost my scrappiness. I’m tired. So, so tired. I’ve been fighting my whole life — against racism, inequity, injustice, and exclusion. Against my own demons, my trauma and internalized self-hatred, and the profound loneliness of being a weirdo in an insane culture.
I’m tired. I know you are, too.
I’ll be 59 by the inauguration after this. Lately I’ve been startled by the sight of myself in photos and videos. I’m aging, and my runway is shortening. I wonder what is still mine to do, and what I have to contribute to a nation that keeps telling me I’m unwelcome.
I was able to leave my husband. I had the option to withdraw from my father. But there’s nowhere safe from Trump and what awaits as the American empire disintegrates. Not Costa Rica, New Zealand, Scandinavia, outer space, or the metaverse. We’re all in this together now.
Today I had no new choices to make. I got out of bed and fed my kitty, Riley. I did my hair, applied makeup, got dressed, and made my bed. I posted an encouraging meme and one of my poems on social media. I drove to a local bakery offering free coffee and post-election community and teared up standing in line to order a slice of quiche. I met and chatted with two women — Tracy and Kate — who were also there seeking safe connection. Then I went to the grocery store and bought Liquid Plumbr to unclog my kitchen sink.
Now I’m alone in my office, writing and preparing to watch Kamala’s concession speech. Tomorrow I will wake up again, feed Riley, get ready, and see clients on Zoom. I’ll write more words, share more poems, and read more articles. I’ll prepare a lesson to teach my university students on Friday. I’ll work out, eat dinner, watch TV, and go to bed.
Last time Trump was president I survived. I laughed, earned money, made love, and created art. I will again. But I’ve given up hope. Hope is passive — it’s driven by desire for an imaginary future. Faith is active, somatic, personal, and present. It’s mature and grounded, making space for other realities than the one we yearn for. True faith asks — what do I (we) trust right now? What do I (we) choose to have confidence in?
Hope is passive — it’s driven by desire for an imaginary future. Faith is active, somatic, personal, and present. It’s mature and grounded, making space for other realities than the one we yearn for.
I trust my inner knowing. I have faith in human resilience. I have faith in (some) people’s ability to grow and learn. I have confidence in the transcendence of art, the endurance of beauty, and the adaptability of Life despite the suffering we inflict. I have faith in the Earth to endure as she has done through billions of years and five mass extinctions. I trust that goodness and beauty will exist long after I’m dead and forgotten, and long after the last human perishes and our sun implodes.
Growing up is hard. Facing the truth can be excruciating. But I would rather know the truth than stay asleep. Last night, I wanted to go to bed feeling safe enough to rest. This morning, I wanted to wake up feeling safe enough to be me. Safe enough to write raw poetry, dance with abandon, speak weird thoughts, and engage fully with my clients and students without fear.
I didn’t get either wish. But maybe I can still be me, and still find safety. Even though I feel like I woke with an abuser in my bed. Being me — marginalized and unwanted by so many — and surviving and finding joy just became an even greater act of subversion than it already was.
I imagine it did for you, too.
I’m tired, but I think I can do that. After all, it’s been a long, tough road to arrive at a place where I have a “me” and even like who she is. It would be a shame to abandon her now. Also, there will come a day when there are new choices to make, and I want to be ready to meet the moment.
Believing truth offers clarity, invites creativity, and provides opportunity. Change is coming and we can’t control it. Now perhaps violence won’t break out on Inauguration Day. Now perhaps other nations will choose to invest in their people free of U.S. influence. Now perhaps Americans will learn to downsize our egos and lifestyles. Now perhaps U.S. liberals will abandon our delusions and commit to midwifing radical change. And perhaps Trump’s victory will accelerate the decline of the American empire and “American way of life”, slowing the extinction of other species and destruction of the planet.
It’s windy today in Los Angeles. The warm Santa Ana gusts are blowing strong and fanning wildfires as they have for thousands of years. Workers are tearing up the concrete with jackhammers in the alley outside. Neighbors are doing chores in their apartment next door. Life goes on. Life is movement and change personified.
I wonder what we’ll wake up to next.
