Lauren Duca wrote this article in Teen Vogue December 10, 2016.
http://www.teenvogue.com/story/donald-trump-is-gaslighting-america
Here are my notes on that article.
The CIA determined that Russia intervened in our election.
President-elect Donald Trump dismissed the story as if it were a piece of fake news.
“The election ended in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history.
The President-elect’s attempt to undermine the American people’s access to [a foreign government’s interference in our election] undermines the very foundation upon which this country was built
Trump won the Presidency by gas light.
His rise to power has awakened a force of bigotry by condoning and encouraging hatred, but also by normalizing deception.
Civil rights are now on trial.
We must regain control of the truth.
Listen to “Duel of the Fates.
“Gas lighting” is someone causing another to question reality.
Doubting whether one’s perspective can be trusted, cling to a single shred of evidence, hold one’s conviction, and free oneself from captor’s control.
To gas light is to psychologically manipulate a person to the point where they question their own sanity.
He swore off the lies of politicians but contradicted himself, without bothering to conceal his conflicts.
He lied to us over and over again, and spun them into evidence of bias.
At the hands of Trump, facts have become interchangeable with opinions, blinding us into arguing amongst ourselves, as our very reality is called into question.
Long list of Trump’s lies:
- Trump saying that he watched thousands of people cheering on 9/11 in Jersey City
- Mexican government forces immigrants into the U.S.
- “30 or 34 million” immigrants in this country
- he never supported the Iraq War
- that the unemployment rate is as high as “42 percent”
- the U.S. is the highest taxed country in the world
- that crime is on the rise
The gas lighting part comes in when the fictions are disputed by the media, and Trump:
- doubles down on his lies
- paints himself as a victim of unfair coverage
- threatens to revoke access.
Trump has repeatedly attempted to undermine the press:
- The well-respected publications as the New York Times.
- He has disseminated a wealth of unsubstantiated attacks on the media
- Baseless tweets
Trump’s gas lighting was manipulative, a deliberate attempt to destabilize journalism as a check government.
Everyone living under Trump:
- Radical progressives
- Hardline Republicans
- Jill Stein’s weird cousin.
The President of the United States cannot be lying to the American electorate with zero accountability.
The threat of deception is not a partisan issue.
Trump took advantage of the things that divide this country…while lying his way to the Oval Office.
The good news about this boiling frog scenario is that we’re not boiling yet.
Trump is not going to stop playing with the burner…
Stop pretending it’s always been so hot in here.
Empower ourselves:
- Insist on fact-checking every Trump statement you read
- If you find factual inaccuracies in an article, send an email to the editor
- Explain how things should have been clearer.
- Inform yourself what outlets are trustworthy and which aren’t.
- Seek out a browser extension that flags misleading sites or print out a list of fake outlets
- Do a thorough search before believing the agenda Trump distributes on Twitter.
- Refuse to accept information simply because it is fed to you
If facts become a point of debate, the very definition of freedom will be called into question.
It will be far easier to take on Trump’s words when there is no question of what he’s said
We all must insist on that level of transparency.
Ugliness to untangle:
- Whether our President can be an admitted sexual predator
- Figure out how to stop him from threatening the sovereignty of an entire religion.
It’s incredible that any of those things could seem like a distraction from a greater peril, or be only the cherry-picked issues in a seemingly unending list of gaffes, but the gaslights are flickering.
Remember the thing that binds this pig-headed hydra together.
We have nothing without the truth.
