Lewandowski Case Shows How Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America

Source: The Federalist
Published: Mar 31, 2016
Author: David Marcus
Post Date: 2016-03-31 04:55:41 by Tooconservative
Views: 3532

Donald Trump is lying to us, and instead of calling him out on it we’re all still playing along.

The term “gaslighting” comes to us from a play called “Gas Light,” written in 1938 by British playwright Patrick Hamilton. The play focuses on an abusive husband in the 1880s who convinces his wife that she is going crazy. One of his methods is lowering the gaslights and telling her it hasn’t gotten any darker. It’s all in her imagination.

Donald Trump has been playing this game on the American people, or at least a meaningful portion of it, for five months now. Telling us that Trump University was a success. Telling us that he only worked with the mafia because everyone in his business had to. Telling us that his campaign manager Corey Lewandoski never touched Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields. Then telling us so what if he touched her.

In Hamilton’s play, the essential element is that the husband is capable of controlling the environment. If the house is the only world his wife knows, then by subtly adjusting its lights and objects, he can make her question her own remembrance, even her own sanity.

Even the staunchest Trump critic has to admit that he has controlled the environment of this election cycle. He turned the great brown hope of the GOP into George Lopez tossing out one-liners while destroying his presidential hopes. He made Jeb Bush, the scion of a great conservative family, look small. He took the mighty Chris Christie who can tame angry New Jersey protesters and made him a teddy bear sidekick. Relying on Charm to Deceive You

The gaslighter has to be charming. The game doesn’t work otherwise. We have to trust people in order to deny what our senses tell us. When Trump said nothing happened between Lewandowski and Fields, Trump’s charm carried weight.

Now that Lewandowski has been arrested and video shows that his account is patently false, Trump is lowering the lights. Well, he says, she touched me too, can I get her charged? He says, well, how do we know she didn’t already have those bruises (which she photographed the next day). As the lights dim, those most tragic figures, cable news anchors, fall into his frothing sea of who knows what the hell happened?

In Hamilton’s play, there is a detective called Detective Rough. He takes a dim view of the abusive husband’s explanations. He thinks the poor woman is being taken for a ride. And he works diligently to find out exactly how. He tries to figure out what the abuser has to gain. And he finds something.

Sadly, Hamilton was much better at exposing the conjuring of gaslighters than today’s media. Time and again the news media has given Trump a pass when he says things that are flatly false. Trump knows very well that he is not winning the lawsuits against him regarding Trump University. In fact he recently complained about an unfair Hispanic judge who was hurting his case. Faced with blatant falsehoods, however, the haircuts just continue their interviews. Don’t Agree To Disagree

When Trump says he was against the war in Iraq from the beginning, then audio shows he did agree with it, that has to be dealt with. When a journalist says “You said this,” and then he argle bargles about celebrity and “who knows what anybody said,” that journalist needs to shut down and focus straight on that. This happens approximately never.

What actually happens is that the interviewer finds some subtle way to express admonishment to viewers, but smiling Donald keeps on smiling. They move on to another subject—agreeing, as it were, to disagree. As if both points of view have validity, when in fact one is demonstrably false. It is in that moment, when they move on to the next subject, that Trump wins.

This moment occurs every time Trump is interviewed. At a certain point the anchor gives up. So what if he’s lying and we know it. We have to get along here. And maybe I’ll look like I’m a bully, like that Megyn Kelly, if I press it too hard. Maybe freaks on Twitter will look for every picture of me. Maybe they will call me a whore and pretend I slept with my boss. That’s exactly what happened to Amanda Carpenter. But who knows, right? It’s all a rich tapestry.

In the play, Detective Rough eventually discovers that there are illicit riches in the couple’s attic. It was the abusive husband’s lighting of the attic lamp in search of this treasure that dimmed the house’s lights. So the wife wasn’t crazy. He was up to something. But what he was up to only benefitted him, not her. She was the victim of his smiling lies. Cut Him Off

The way to deal with a person who is gaslighting is to cut them off. Full stop. There is no negotiation. There is only a severance, at least until the abuser can deal with reality. Thus far the news media has been unwilling to cut this cord. But if Trump lies and you know it’s a lie, you have to stop the interview. When he points at a red wall and calls it blue, you have to shut down the feed.

Sadly, a reality-based philosophy of journalism has yet to emerge. But I would suggest one principle for its creation. When someone insists a lie is the truth they must accept reality, or they must not be invited back. I know there is a lot of money to be made out of Trump. I’ve made some. But he is telling us things that are not true.

The major news outlets are unlikely to become more like Detective Rough. They do well with Trump’s ugly lies. But we don’t have to. We don’t have to be gaslighted. “Gas Light” was written in 1938. Surely, almost 80 years later, we aren’t more susceptible to the scam it describes.

Post Comment   Private Reply

#1: Logsplitter    To: TooConservative (#0)

So, company man, how long has your republican party been gaslighting real conservatives? The GOP has been exposed. Your leadership would sooner roll over ass- up and hand the country over to Hillary than follow the wishes of their base. The GOP is finished as a viable political party.

Logsplitter posted on 2016-03-31 06:30:38   Reply   Private Reply

#2: Tooconservative    To: Logsplitter, A K A Stone, Vicomte13 (#1)

Your leadership would sooner roll over ass-up...

It is striking how often you guys manage to work sodomy into a discussion. You really do have some issues.

Tooconservative posted on 2016-03-31 06:40:12   Reply   Private Reply

#3: Roscoe    To: TooConservative (#2)

Someone says ass and you immediately think sodomy. Huh.

Roscoe posted on 2016-03-31 07:21:27   Reply   Private Reply

#4: Tooconservative    To: Roscoe (#3)

Someone says ass and you immediately think sodomy. Huh.

I think "rolling over ass-up" is hard to interpret any other way.

And you're another sodomy-obsessed poster here. So it's no surprise you show up here, all innocuous, saying "What sodomy obsession?".

You're all ridiculous. Like some desperate homo is trying to sneak up behind you just to have his way with your digestive tract.

Puh-leeze.

Tooconservative posted on 2016-03-31 08:10:39   Reply   Private Reply

#5: Logsplitter    To: TooConservative (#4)

Ain't nobody wants anything to do with your digestive tract, TC. With your raging IBS, it's probably like having Wilford Brimley in your colon.

Logsplitter posted on 2016-03-31 08:20:38   Reply   Private Reply

#6: misterwhite    To: TooConservative (#0)

Is 'gaslighting' like 'blowing smoke up my ass'?

'Cause that's what the GOP has been doing to us for decades.

Time for a change.

misterwhite posted on 2016-03-31 08:26:48   Reply   Private Reply

#7: Tooconservative    To: Logsplitter (#5)

You can call me names all you want but any reader here knows I'm right about your peculiar obsessions with male sodomy.

And the way you all talk about it constantly is, IMO, a big part of the reason why LF has no regular women posters at all. It's just too crude for women to subject themselves to. I simply don't know women who like that kind of talk, let alone a constant stream of bile on that topic.

Tooconservative posted on 2016-03-31 08:27:40   Reply   Private Reply

#8: Logsplitter    To: TooConservative (#7)

Oh, spare me the dramatics. It's not like someone grabbed you by the arm in a forceful manner. Jeez! Do all metro-sexuals wear their ovaries on their sleeves or just you?

Logsplitter posted on 2016-03-31 08:46:28   Reply   Private Reply

#9: Tooconservative    To: misterwhite (#6)

Is 'gaslighting' like 'blowing smoke up my ass'?

I thought the article provided a good explanation of the source of the term 'gaslighting'. It is a term that has become popular among the pundit class in the last year and is often cited in reference to Trump. IOW, gaslighting is what the pundit class calls Trump's flavor of pandering.

Anyway, I thought I probably was not the only one who had heard this gaslighting term and still didn't know what it meant. Now we know. Or we do if we read the article. Of course, I do know it is sheer delusion to think that 99% of LF's readers do more than scan the title and maybe the first paragraph before they start posting their usual bile and continuing the grudge matches they have going from earlier threads.

Tooconservative posted on 2016-03-31 09:00:27   Reply   Private Reply

#10: Tooconservative    To: Logsplitter, Moderator X (#8)

It's not like someone grabbed you by the arm in a forceful manner.

You are micro-aggressing me. I feel #Unsafe.

Save me, Moderator X!

Tooconservative posted on 2016-03-31 09:01:21   Reply   Private Reply

#11: Vicomte13    To: TooConservative (#2)

It is striking how often you guys manage to work sodomy into a discussion. You really do have some issues.

"You guys"?

I've said it before (to the consternation of others), and I'll repeat: I really do not care what people do, as long as they don't do it in the street and disturb the horses.

I simply don't care if men do men, or women do men. Like gun rights, it's an issue that doesn't interest me. It's an abstraction that's out there. I'm tolerant of gun nuts and of gun grabbers, and likewise of prudes and turd burglars.

So including me on your list of the sex obsessed was not fair. I'm simply not.

Vicomte13 posted on 2016-03-31 09:43:06   Reply   Private Reply

#12: Fred Mertz    To: TooConservative (#9)

Anyway, I thought I probably was not the only one who had heard this gaslighting term and still didn't know what it meant.

You and me bofe.

This piece explains it well.

Fred Mertz posted on 2016-03-31 09:49:26   Reply   Private Reply

#13: Roscoe    To: TooConservative (#4)

The other posters give your ass a spanking and your sodomy fantasies come right out. Over and over again.

Roscoe posted on 2016-03-31 10:07:42   Reply   Private Reply

#14: Roscoe    To: Logsplitter (#8)

Do all metro-sexuals wear their ovaries on their sleeves or just you?

He's the Ben Shapiro of LF. Sans any writing talent.

Roscoe posted on 2016-03-31 10:10:14   Reply   Private Reply

#15: Tooconservative    To: Fred Mertz (#12)

This piece explains it well.

Woh, someone actually read the article.

I may need to be sedated.     : )

Tooconservative posted on 2016-03-31 10:15:43   Reply   Private Reply

#16: Tooconservative    To: Roscoe, Logsplitter (#14)

He's the Ben Shapiro of LF.

You guys enjoy hating the Joos almost as much as you hate the homos.

Tooconservative posted on 2016-03-31 10:17:05   Reply   Private Reply

#17: Roscoe    To: TooConservative (#16)

hating the Joos

SJWs always lie.

Roscoe posted on 2016-03-31 10:20:17   Reply   Private Reply

#18: Tooconservative    To: Roscoe (#17)

No, I'm pinning the tail on the donkey. Very accurately too.

Tooconservative posted on 2016-03-31 10:36:48   Reply   Private Reply

#19: Roscoe    To: TooConservative (#18)

SJWs always lie. SJWs always double down.

Roscoe posted on 2016-03-31 10:40:41   Reply   Private Reply

#20: SOSO    To: Logsplitter, TooConservative (#1)

The GOP has been exposed.

LMAO. Wow, nothing escapes your keen eye.......eventually.

SOSO posted on 2016-03-31 12:00:36   Reply   Private Reply

#21: SOSO    To: TooConservative, Fred Mertz (#15)

I may need to be sedated. : )

You mean neither of you are?

SOSO posted on 2016-03-31 12:01:46   Reply   Private Reply

#22: Fred Mertz    To: SOSO (#21)

Fred Mertz posted on 2016-03-31 12:23:15   Reply   Private Reply

#23: SOSO    To: Fred Mertz (#22)

I should be by 10 p.m. this evening.

How are things going?

SOSO posted on 2016-03-31 13:52:39   Reply   Private Reply

#24: Fred Mertz    To: SOSO, buckeroo, hondo68, TLBSHOW, sneakypete (#23)

Fred Mertz posted on 2016-03-31 14:00:43   Reply   Private Reply

#25: SOSO    To: Fred Mertz (#24)

How's it going wife you?

Thanks for asking. We are in the second cycle of a clinical drug trial. The first MRI was very encouraging but the side effects are gaining on her. We expect that eventually the trial drug will lose its efficacy and we will have to find another trial. We alreaady laid that ground work but given the improvement in her tumor we will have to reconsider all of the options again as some that weren't open to her then now are.

Yes, life is good if you let it be so.

SOSO posted on 2016-03-31 14:05:16   Reply   Private Reply