Suffering love

 I'm not educated in psychological matters, or matters relating to mental health or human relationships. All I know, and all I mean to convey here in this post, is from my own personal experiences and the little bit of googling on the matter that I have done. It's baffled me how such a large portion of the electorate in the USA has not only voted for Trump in three consecutive elections but they also seem to be supportive of his messaging and his actions while in office. I'm struggling, trying to comprehend the phenomenon, to little avail. I found this particular web page discussing narcissistic manipulative inconsistency. I recommend reading it and getting an idea for how narcissists behave toward their victims. That article is specifically talking about parents abusing their children, but I believe it can be applied to any number of relationships.

So what caused me to eventually find that article, and consider this topic of manipulative inconsistency, is the way Trump has been oddly behaving concerning the tariffs that he is continually flip-flopping on. I'm vaguely aware of this tactic that abusers use to control their victims. It keeps the victim confused or afraid, perhaps it gets them to engage in a desired behavior that the manipulator wants them to do. Again, I'm not trying to speak as an expert here, just as a citizen trying to make sense of what's going on and why so many people are on board with it. 

The event that sparked my immediate interest in this matter was Doug Ford announcing that he would be imposing a 25% tariff on all electricity exported by Ontario to the United States. As I understand it, there are over 1 million US homes and businesses who use, at least in part, electricity from Ontario, primarily in New York, Michigan, and Minnesota. Doing rough calculations in my head, I estimate that the average consumer would pay roughly $10 more per month on their electric bill as a result of this tariff (unless they decrease usage or the grid finds alternative sources for the power). So it isn't necessarily life-changing, but it could be a nontrivial cost to families who are already living paycheck to paycheck. When Ford announced this tariff (I'm paraphrasing here), he basically said "I'm not going to deal with this constant back and forth on the threat of tariffs. I'm imposing this tariff until all talk of tariffs is completely off the table for good." To me, that is signaling that he is unwilling to put up with the (admittedly rather childish) behavior of Trump and refuses to be kept in the emotional state of fear of potential trade war.

Again, not being an expert on economics and foreign trade, I simply offer my layman's opinion that I do not believe starting a trade war with long-term trade allies is a good idea or sound foreign policy. The people who will be hurt by tariffs on imports and exports is the consumer. We trade lots of goods with Canada and Mexico and if tariffs were imposed on all of those goods every time they crossed the border, the retail price of many everyday goods (and significant infrequent purchases, such as vehicles) would increase significantly. Particularly, those living below or near the poverty line would be hurt the most because they rely on relatively stable prices since they are living paycheck to paycheck (or not even making it to their next paycheck and simply leaving some bills unpaid out of necessity). My heart goes out to all the families in those situations, and I hope that they are not made to suffer by the infantile trade war.

Back to the topic at hand, as I was reading the article I linked above, I had a sort of epiphany. Let me quote two particular passages from that article.

This behavior can be extremely confusing and frustrating for the recipient, who is constantly shamed and guilt tricked into believing in a false reality where the manipulator imposes their own false perception of themselves as caring and good, especially when it suits them, yet behaves completely in the opposite manner when things get difficult or when they feel like their authority is challenged in some way.

The scapegoat may develop a skewed understanding of what constitutes healthy relationships and interactions. The manipulator’s contradictory behavior teaches them that expressions of love and concern are merely tools for manipulation, leading to skepticism and mistrust in future relationships. 

I recognized that behavior when I was reading it. And it feels like so many things clicked in my head as I was thinking about it. I grew up in a religious household. I was raised Mormon. I am familiar with the teachings of Christianity. I know the general feel of what being in a religion feels like, particularly a large centrally-organized religion.  I know that many sects of Christianity have slightly different views on what God is like, and how they interpret his feelings and personality. One thing that seems to be invariant across Christian religions is the belief that God loves us. God wants what is best for us, he wants us to be happy and joyful. He wants us to join him in Heaven after we die. Things of that nature. At the same time, most of those sects also believe some contradictory (at least from an objective outside-the-religion perspective) statements about God's behavior. They may (or may not) believe that he uses natural phenomena to punish us for wrongdoing. They may believe that he intentionally puts obstacles and difficulties in our lives to test us, to try our faith and our belief in him. I present the example of Job in the Bible as an example of this. God took away his family, his property, his livelihood, and still Job praised God.

That is the connection I see. Religious people are often taught that love is suffering. They are taught that God's love can be felt in the way he sends us difficult things to overcome. Imagine a parent putting plywood on top of a child's mattress to make the bed more uncomfortable while the child is trying to sleep. That is effectively what religious people are taught that God does to them--and that doing so is an expression of his love for us. Being out of the religion of my youth for so long now, I see it quite differently than I did while I was a believing member of it. If I had read this blog post back when I was a believing Mormon I would feel cognitive dissonance at these words. It would be uncomfortable. I would dismiss it as patently false. At the time I knew that God wanted what was best for me and if he put a trial in my life then he had a reason to do it and I would come out of it a better person if only I kept my faith and endeavored to the end, giving praise and thanks to God for allowing me to grow through that trial. And now I see how that whole narrative is nothing more than narcissistic manipulation tactics. If a parent made their child sleep on plywood instead of a mattress--not out of necessity because they couldn't afford a mattress or any other possibly excusable reason, but because they simply wanted the child to suffer in order to become stronger--hopefully that parent would be judged by society and the department of child services would intervene to rescue the abused children. I would hope that no reasonable person would think that's a good thing for a parent to do.

So how does this tie back in to Trump? Well, the way I see it he's basically doing the same thing. He says that he cares about the little guy--he loves the working class. (Of course he has to say this in order to get elected because he needs blue collar workers to vote for him if he wants to have a chance of winning.) He calls himself a "blue-collar billionaire". What that's supposed to mean is beyond me, as he's surely never done a day of manual labor in his life. I do know that many working-class Americans believe that if they work hard enough they can become a millionaire or a billionaire, so my guess is he uses that self-appellation in order to appeal to that notion and to give them hope that one day they'll be rich like him, if only they can just keep suffering through the shitty life they have and hold true to their faith in him.

He makes great promises about improving the lives of everyday Americans. But when I look at his actions, all I can see is that he is serving himself and other rich people. He gave a huge tax break to rich people during his first term in office. Yes, middle and lower class Americans did get a teeny tiny tax cut as well, but the lion's share of it went to rich people. He's not helping the working class. He's only making them suffer more, and they're happy to do it because they have been conditioned by whichever religion they belong to (or were raised in) that suffering is love. Suffering through the hard economic times they're going through is how they prove their loyalty to him, to show him that they have faith in him that he'll do everything he promised. In reality, his trade war will only serve to weaken ties with allies and hurt the working class and those in poverty with increased cost of goods. 

The social programs that are currently being gutted by DOGE are mainly those which help poor families--people who can't afford their own medical bills or their own food and shelter. He's slashed funding for scientific research, which will have future impacts as the advances we make in pharmaceutical research or medical research grinds to a halt. Other nations will lead in scientific advances. High-tech jobs will move to other countries. We'll have a poorer, less-educated, and far unhealthier populace due to many of these cuts. He's gutting funding to our national parks. That one doesn't even make sense from the "we should treat government as a business" perspective because they generate more revenue than they cost--in other words they turn a profit. Do we want our preserved lands to no longer be preserved? Are we going to sell them to developers to build more subdivisions or apartment complexes? I don't know, but I don't see how cutting funding to the parks helps anyone and it directly hurts people who enjoy visiting the parks.

On the whole suffering thing, my perspective is that life is difficult enough already. We don't need a "benevolent" God or government intentionally making life harder just so we can learn and grow from difficult things in our lives. We need social programs in place to help out people who can't afford a place to live on the meager income their employer provides, or those who are incapable of being gainfully employed due to circumstances out of their control. I believe in helping people who are in need, feeding those who are hungry, sheltering those who are homeless, paying medical bills for those who can't afford the care they need. I believe society will be better if we take care of our weakest and most vulnerable members. The current administration (and the Republican party in general) seems to believe the opposite--that we will have a better society if we neglect and ignore those who are in need, and simply yell at them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I never want to be that cold-hearted, myself. 

Musk said "The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy". I believe he truly believes that. And it would seem that Trump believes it as well. Personally, I believe that empathy is a strength. I believe it is cowardly to turn a blind eye to those in need, to bully people who are too weak to defend themselves, and to marginalize those who are in the minority. I believe we are stronger together. I believe we have a better, happier society when we help each other out and bear one another's burdens. I am taxed on the property I own and some of that tax money goes to fund nearby schools. I will never benefit from this, since I have no children and have no plan to ever have any children. I will not be educated personally from these schools. I simply believe that the money which I pay to my county will go toward educating my neighbors' children and I am happy to be helping them out in that way. The same is true for any of my federal tax money which is used to fund food stamps, WIC, Medicare/Medicaid, and any other programs designed to help those in need. Yes, I want to see actual fraud and waste reduced. But what is happening now with DOGE is anything but that. 

My vision for America is a growing, thriving middle class where it's easier to work your way out of poverty to the middle class. I recently saw statistics on that and was appalled. In Japan, it only takes working 14 hours a week to get out of poverty. They're clearly doing something right. In most countries, the number is 40 or fewer. In the US it is 80 hours. You need to work two full-time jobs in order to get out of poverty. The American dream is dead. We need to do better by the working class. We need to actually help people get out of poverty and live a comfortable life. We have the means to do it, we just need to make it happen. While Trump may say he wants that, and I'm sure that most of his supporters believe that's what he's doing, I am not seeing him do anything which actually benefits the average American--only things which benefit Putin and rich people, including (and especially) himself. How does Japan do so much better than we do? They have several social programs in place, including free/cheap meals for children and a place for them to spend time with other children their age while their parents are working. But what are we doing? We're doing the opposite. We have politicians who suggest that kids getting free lunch at school should get a job at McDonald's instead. That is so heartless. In my mind, that is not love and it isn't true leadership. I believe that love is kind.