The President As An Abusive Parent

"If you’re anything like me, it’s not just Trump’s policies that anger and depress you. It’s also the man himself.

"Ronald Reagan’s policies were terrible, but he tried to present himself as a decent man.

"Trump is a despicable human being. His odiousness affects many of us because presidents are parent figures to the nation as a whole.

"According to psychological research, we respond to presidents much as we did to parents when we were kids.

"George Lakoff, professor of cognitive linguistics at Berkeley, has found that two competing models of parenting shape political preferences: either the 'strict parent' or 'nurturant parent.'

"The strict parent views the world as a dangerous place that needs to be controlled. The nurturant parent emphasizes empathy and mutual responsibility.

"Lakoff has found that presidents are elected either because a large portion of the public wants a tough, judgmental parent — or a caring, nurturing one.

"Reagan fit into the strict parent model; Barack Obama, the nurturant parent one.

"But I think Trump represents a third model — the cruel and abusive parent. A parent so malignantly narcissistic that he wields punishment for his own satisfaction, often in unpredictable ways that make him even more terrifying.

"In other words, Trump is not just abusing presidential power by violating laws and the Constitution. His behavior is also abusive.

"His malignant narcissism is viciously vindictive. His cruelty borders on sadism; he seems to take pleasure in causing others pain. And he often changes his mind or alters the punishment, creating even more confusion and fear.

"I don’t want to oversimplify the very complex relationships between the parenting we had (or subconsciously want) and how we respond to Trump. But I believe these emotional connections are real and important. Critiques of Trump’s policies alone don’t get at them.

"Many of us who had nurturing parents are depressed and disoriented by Trump. We find it hard to comprehend how such a detestable person can wield so much power over us.

"Even many voters who hold to the strict parent view — who may have had a strict parent and perhaps voted for Trump because they felt the nation and the world were getting out of control — reject his abusiveness. About 6 in 10 U.S. adults now say that Trump has 'gone too far' in using presidential power to achieve his goals.

"A third group is profoundly shaken by Trump. Of the people I know who are most emotionally devastated by him, many had at least one abusive parent.

"I suspect some are overwhelmingly drawn to him for the same reason, but instead of being shattered by him they are fanatically loyal. This would include the sycophants now surrounding him in the White House and Cabinet who appear to share his cruelty and sadism.

"Research shows that abusive parents often become more abusive over time — more enraged, more paranoid, and less predictable.

"Hence, the children of cruel and abusive parents tend to abandon them as soon as they are able. Or cling to them ever more desperately.

"Let’s hope all of America does the former with Trump, and the sooner the better."

Robert Reich

Conservatives And Child Welfare

"Spanning the gamut of terrible policy choices and their impacts on children, we look today at the perverse reality at odds with conservatives' claim to be standing up for 'family values' and saving children from the abuse of Democrats."

Click on the link below for a podcast presenting the details of how, in many ways, conservatives are child abusers:

What Conservatives Think of When They Think of the Children

Comparing Religious Indoctrination With Other Child Abuse

The following essay is the best justification for considering religious indoctrination of children an abuse I have read:

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Is Teaching Young Children Religion a Form of Child Abuse?
© 2000 by Larry Gott

Most people suppose they know what constitutes child abuse. Abuse may generally be defined as action or behavior towards a child that causes harm. But what, exactly, do we mean by harm? Is it always clear-cut?

Reasonable people would agree that hitting a child hard enough to cause bruising or other injury constitutes abuse. But, even though many states have called spanking abuse, many parents believe it is not. It is open to debate. Burning a child with cigarettes is clearly abuse. But smoking around children, even though it is known that secondhand smoke causes cancer, heart disease, and respiratory problems, is not so clearly abuse in the minds of many. The matter is open to argument.

Other gray areas include shouting at one’s kids. That’s just “normal” in many households, but, carried to extremes, it can be abusive, too. Belittling and shaming children, also can be called abusive. Calling children names, labeling them (“you’re stupid,” “you’re destructive”), and threatening them (even if the threats are not carried out), all are forms of abuse, depending on which experts you choose to listen to.

Admittedly the grayest of the gray areas is the teaching of children. Can the secular and religious education of children be abusive? Secular teaching may be more or less effective in preparing children for their adult lives; more in cases where children are taught how to think, to reason for themselves and derive answers from evidence; less where they are taught what to think and the conclusions at which they should arrive.

I've come to believe that teaching religion to children is a form of child abuse. Parents quite naturally think that their children should be taught whatever the parents believe. In a seemingly never-ending cycle, parents who were themselves brainwashed as children pass along to their own children the religion they were taught. It never occurs to them to examine what they’ve been taught to see whether it has been helpful or harmful.

Rather than teaching children that some behaviors are harmful, religion (Christian religion in particular) teaches them that their very natures are evil, their thoughts corrupt and their actions so vile that they deserve to be tortured for eternity unless they continually beg some implacable cosmic bully for forgiveness. Children are taught that an invisible god, or one of his minions, is looking over their shoulders at all times. While many adults resent the proliferation of surveillance cameras, they teach their children that someone who can see through walls is always watching them. It is a wonder, given that kind of upbringing, that most people are not schizophrenic.

Stuffing immature minds full of dogma when they haven't the means to sort through it critically damages the developing psyche. No amount of post-adult reason ever completely liberates the subconscious from all that ecclesiastical baggage. The pain it creates is lifelong and debilitating.

Teaching children religion is abusive because it creates confusion and discourages critical thought. Further, it fosters guilt, which is particularly destructive, because it remains in the subconscious long after the reasons for it are recognized and understood.

It needs to be said that, while some teaching may ultimately be harmful, it does not constitute abuse in the sense that the parent or teacher intends harm or is indifferent to the consequences of the teaching. The harm done is the end result of a cycle that started eons ago. Unfortunately, relatively few people as adults thoroughly examine what they’ve been taught. The whole idea of “faith” is designed to repress critical thought and to encourage acceptance instead. The result is that faulty thinking is passed on from generation to generation. Anything that makes the mind work less well, or causes emotional pain may be characterized as harm, and its inculcation is abuse.