The Abused Among Us

Mr. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times has given a passionate plea to Trump voters to consider voting for Biden. He listed his reasons, which from a certain perspective make sense. He remains confused about how anyone could vote for Mr. Trump given what we know about his personal, professional, and political lives.

Mr. Kristof has picked thorny topics this week. More power to him.

In this case, I invite you and Mr. Kristof to consider that Mr. Trump was an abused child. There is egregious child abuse of the types recorded in these statistics: https://americanspcc.org/child-abuse-statistics/

There is also the day to day wear and tear of a demanding, unsympathetic parent. Both men and women can be this type of abuser. These folks and their kids aren’t included in the statistics I reference above, and there are a lot of them. Mr. Trump’s dad was the kind of dad who is cold and sympathetic with their kids. He wanted to mold Mr. Trump into a hardnosed, bare-knuckles man who pursued wealth and social status by any means.

This harms a child’s ego and sense of self.

If a child is abused in this manner, that makes it hard for such people to locate self-worth and a positive identity in one’s own mind and body, and such kids grow up to locate worth in anyone who can give them a sense of identity and safety in this scary, unsympathetic world. In Mr. Trump’s case, he wanted his dad’s approval and never got it. Sometimes this kind of person substitutes the quick fix of drugs for self-worth, but drugs can become the same kind of ruthless taskmasters as the cold, demeaning parent, which leads to a miserable life and early grave.

I submit to you that those who instinctively ‘like’ Mr. Trump regardless of what he says or does like him because he is their normal. Like Mr. Trump, they were probably abused mentally and emotionally as kids. Like him, they need our compassion and help, or their problems will remain society’s problems.