Sadists and abusers create two emotions in their victims.
The first is fear. The tangible, acid churn of it, the dread of crossing them, the anticipation of the blow, the kick, the scar, the gunshot. It scales all the way up, from the abused child or spouse to an entire nation living under an autocrat’s thumb.
The second is rage.
That one isn’t guaranteed. For too many, the fear never breaks. It settles in as a condition of life, a slow psychological collapse that makes the cruelty permanent, tragic, and too often fatal.
Donald Trump is the ultimate abuser from the personal to the presidential, a grotesque sadist without one redeeming quality, and he has left this country battered, bruised, frightened, and broken. He has done this to women in his personal life as well, as the record clearly demonstrates.
In the long decade since he moved in, put his feet up on the furniture, and told America to go get him a sandwich, bitch, or he’d knock us around again, getting him out of our lives has felt impossible. He scarred this nation so thoroughly that millions
