The Federal Government is Abusing We the People
By: Susan Corso
Tags: Paul Krugman, Jamelle Bouie, Domestic Violence, Abuse, Recovery

The administration is committing acts of domestic violence …

-Ed Columnist Jamelle Bouie writes in this morning’s New York Times. “We have learned that the Republican Party, or much of it, has abandoned whatever commitment to electoral democracy it had to begin with. That it views defeat on its face as illegitimate, a product of fraud concocted by opponents who don’t deserve to rule. That it is fully the party of minority rule, committed to the idea that a vote doesn’t count if it isn’t for its candidates, and that if democracy won’t serve its partisan and ideological interests, then so much for democracy.”

Democracy bears it own standard for truth, though. Democracy is more resilient than these blatant abuses. And, make no mistake, Beloved, that is what they are — abuses.

I know whereof I speak. Been there, done that. At the time, it would have been characterized as domestic violence, but abuse, as I learned to call it, is abuse, and it’s up to the abused to name it for what it is. The abuser will deny it ad nauseum, and ad infinitum.

I lived with someone who hit me. It was horrendous. Not only that, but I lived with an abuser who hit me where it wouldn’t show. Never my face. Ever. So I walked — perhaps, stumbled, zombie-like, is better — through my life feeling like I carried a dirty, not-so-little secret.

Eventually, with the help of a prison security guard, her psychologist wife, an enlightened judge, and a genuine angel, I escaped. When I did, it took me a long while to put my Humpty Dumpty sense of self back together again I was so fragmented by the emotional abuse that had rained down upon me for more than two years.

We the People are having a much harder time escaping the daily abuse perpetrated on us by aggrieved white patriarchs who are afraid they are losing their power — and, well, not to put too bald a point on it, they are. This too is domestic violence — perpetrated upon a country and its populace.

Novelist and Nobel Laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was born on this day in 1918. He lived to be 90. Anu Garg’s Word-A-Day email ends with a daily quote; here is today’s by the redoutable novelist.

“Let us not forget that violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is necessarily interwoven with falsehood. Between them lies the most intimate, the deepest of natural bonds. Violence finds its only refuge in falsehood, falsehood its only support in violence. Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his method must inexorably choose falsehood as his principle.”

It is hard to face bald truth, Beloved. The insistence by Mr. Trump and 100 members of Congress that he won the election has crossed a line and become abusive. He, as we already know, is an abuser, witness the myriad women who have so accused him. The women alone. There are plenty of other abuses where those came from.

The Texas lawsuit to overturn votes representing the will of the people is spurious at least, abusive at worst. All the lawyers who weigh in on it say so. The four swing states who are the subject of the suit have filed their own suits with the Supreme Court asking that the court toss the Texas suit.

The suit is both violent — to due process and the rule of law — and false. The countersuits have been filed by three Republicans, and a Democrat. These four patriots are attempting to eschew the legal domestic violence being done in our country and truth-tell in the face of egregious lies.

Ann Sparanese from Englewood, New Jersey wrote a Letter to the Editor in this morning’s paper. “Re ‘Trump Allies Got Medicine Unavailable to Others’ (news article, Dec. 10): Core abuses, privilege and deadly hypocrisy are exposed here for all who suspected that Donald Trump, Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani, among others in this ‘circle,’ did not survive Covid in any ordinary way.

“It leaves me infuriated that they get special treatment while my daughter, who is eight months pregnant, would probably not receive these treatments if she contracted the virus because they are ‘rationed’ and ‘cleared’ for the growing circle of Donald Trump’s family, friends and staff members.

“Don’t wear masks; you will be saved! This would be shameful for people who are capable of shame.”

So sorry to have to say this, Ms. Sparanese, although I thoroughly agree with you. Abusers are not capable of shame.

Economist Paul Krugman points out yet another abuse perpetrated upon the American people.

“What we should be doing, instead, is minimizing the suffering while we wait. That is, the issue isn’t stimulus, it’s disaster relief. What should this relief involve? It should provide support for the unavoidably unemployed, sustain businesses through the dark months ahead and aid state and local governments that are suffering severe declines in revenues and that will otherwise be forced to make drastic cuts in essential services.”

But, with the inability to feel shame, Beloved, comes the inability to empathize. The bubble of sycophants and yes-men and Stepford women in The White House fosters an environment based strictly on falsehoods the Abuser-in-Chief wants to believe. And because he believes his own lies, he commits violence upon us all. He abuses us all. Domestic violence is alive and well within our borders.

Mr. Krugman again, “In fact, however, the administration proposal completely eliminated the most important piece of any relief deal — expanded benefits for the unemployed — replacing it with one-time $600 checks that would be sent to everyone.”

The $600 would be welcome, but … it won’t touch the real need of those who are unemployed, and it isn’t really needed by those who are employed. The Abuser just wants another check sent to everyone with his signature. Who can’t use an extra $600 but it’s, as they say in my profession of mystery writer, a red herring. It’s a Look, there’s Haley’s Comet tactic. And abuse is still abuse.

These next few weeks till the Inauguration are likely to be fraught with Covid deaths, lonely holidays, and more political abuses, Beloved. What I learned as someone who was once abused is that only the abused gets to name abuse.

It is no mistake that there are 40 days until the Inauguration. In Hebrew numerology [gematria] the number 40 is hugely significant. It means as long as it takes. It might be hard for us gather our courage at this point in the abuse cycle, Beloved, but if we do, we can name the abuses for what they actually are — the abuse of domestic violence.

Then come January 20th we can begin to heal from the falsehood, from the violence, from the abusive behaviors that have left so many of us like deer in the headlights, fragmented, shaken to our very cores because we don’t know what else might come at us.

Well, here’s a prediction from someone who has long recovered from abuse, Beloved. It’s really tough to recover from abuse alone, but, make no mistake, we can and we will recover. And, no matter what we endure for the next 40 days, we’ll recover better together.

P.S. I found this on Instagram by @timdillinger after I’d written this post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIqA3Ilhf2t/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

It begins: “Patriarchy needs victims. …”

Dr. Susan Corso is a spiritual teacher, the founder of iAmpersand, and the author of The Mex Mysteries, the Boots & Boas Books, and spiritual nonfiction. Her website is susancorso.com.