By Chris Satullo
It’s hard to believe now, but back in 2016 I didn’t know what the term gaslighting meant.
Of course, after seven years of living in Donald Trump’s America – seven years of watching him convince nearly half the nation that up is down, white is black, the sky is purple, and he’s the persecuted one – I’m all too familiar with how gaslighting works and how improbably successful it can be in the hands of a master.
Lately, as the criminal indictments pile up and his legal peril mounts, Trump has been opening the gas valves to maximum flow.
The MAGA faithful remain enthralled with him – and in thrall to his funhouse-mirror version of reality. Each new grand jury report, no matter how precise and juicy the details, improves his poll numbers and cements his supporters’ belief that he is the most unfairly harassed politician in American history.
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., the chirping of birds cannot be heard above the clucking, tsk-tsking and harrumphing of Trump’s terrified acolytes in Congress, as they caterwaul about the “political weaponization of the criminal justice system.” The truth – that he is the most indicted, impeached, sued and ruled against president in American history not because he’s persecuted, but because he’s the most lawless, immoral and sloppily corrupt president in American history – cannot penetrate the clouds of gas that shroud his supporters.
What has struck me with new force in recent weeks is how closely Trump’s all-world skill at gaslighting is tied to other salient moves of his: scapegoating and projection. These are intricately linked mechanisms; each move enables the others.
Nothing that goes wrong – for him, for his party, for America – is ever Trump’s fault. His scapegoating of others for his own faults and errors is as consistent as the sunrise. The only variation: Sometimes the blame falls on his sworn enemies, other times on innocent third parties, and shockingly often on his own allies or loyal staff.
Once he established this no-fault principle with the millions trapped in his gaslit alternative universe, his go-to move of “deny, deny, deny” becomes easy-peasy.
Projection is the psychological term for accusing others of precisely the same sins that you have committed, are committing or plan on committing. Trump is the grand poobah of projection. He does it with a gusto and chutzpah that are a marvel to behold.
Consider: Even as he has issued daily, all-caps Truth Social rants about the crazed, OUT OF CONTROL and EVILLLLLLL!!!! FBI agents, prosecutors and (so-biased!) judges that are unfairly tormenting him, even as his amen chorus on Capitol Hill tut-tuts about this awful “criminalization of political differences,” Trump has laid out clear plans for a vengeful second term.
High on his to-do list is an overhaul of the FBI and Department of Justice so that he can…wait for it…weaponize them to do his bidding, to harass and prosecute his political enemies (defined pretty much as anyone who doesn’t worship him on bended knee as America’s Sun God).
This is not some secret plan. It’s on his website, as part of a broader plan to slash the number of career public servants in most federal departments and agencies (not only Justice) and replace them with people whose first loyalty is to Him, not to the Constitution or the American people.
I quote:
There is no more dire threat to the American Way of Life than the corruption and weaponization of our Justice System—and it’s happening all around us. If we cannot restore the fair and impartial rule of law, we will not be a free country.
[I will appoint as U.S. attorneys} the 100 most ferocious legal warriors against crime and Communist corruption that this country has ever seen. …
As we completely overhaul the federal Department of Justice and FBI, we will also launch sweeping civil rights investigations into Marxist local District Attorneys.
In addition, we will have a complete investigation into the use of police state tactics by federal authorities to arrest conservatives and Christians. We will find out who ordered it, and we will hold them totally accountable.
You should check out this website. There’s so, so much more in this vein. It’s deranged; it’s a bring-your-own-tin-foil-hat party.
It’s also the platform of the man with the second-best chance of becoming our next president.
But the gaslighting syndrome does not stop with him, and will not stop even if convictions, prison sentences or another lost election somehow thwart him. The virus has infected hordes:
- GOP members of Congress, whom we saw become petrified and outraged on Jan. 6, have shoved all that deep down the memory hole and now pretend – kow-towing to the MAGA throng – that it was all just a reverential, patriotic visit to the Rotunda. Those angry things we watched them say to cameras and on Twitter in the immediate aftermath of the insurrection? Well, you’re mistaken; they never said them.
- A GOP-led House committee revoked a human rights expert’s invitation to testify about China’s violations of free speech. Why? Because she refused to remove one sentence critical of Trump from her written testimony. Apparently, victims of gaslighting become immune to irony.
- After decades of complaining that a liberal-leaning U.S. Supreme Court was activist, ideological, bent on legislating from the bench and borderline corrupt, the Federalist Society and its allies have carefully crafted a court majority that is…activist, ideological, bent on legislating from the bench and, in the case of a few justices, ethically dubious.
Before writing this, I consulted Google for a crisp definition of gaslighting. One set of posts the algorithm served up outlined what the writer described as the four components of gaslighting: denial, project, scapegoating and coercion by charm (or when charm fails, bullying).
Check, check, check and check.
Here’s what was interesting: The writer is a counselor specializing in coping with marital or sexual betrayal. Trump or politics were nowhere mentioned in her posts.
Trump, say what you want about him, is in some ways a model of consistency. What he did in the past to Ivana, Marla and Melania, he’s now relentlessly trying to do to an entire country. Even after all that, nearly half the country still can’t seem to let him go.
Marjorie Taylor Greene was kind of right when she said it’s time for a national divorce. Except the one we need is not the one she had in mind.
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Chris Satullo, a civic engagement consultant, is a former editorial page editor/columnist at The Philadelphia Inquirer, and a former vice president/news at WHYY public media in Philadelphia