Normalized abuse

Elana Sztokman of Everyday Feminism writes about emotional abuse. Women frequently have to deal with this when they deal with the toxic masculinity. One good way of dealing with such abuse is to identify and understand the tactics. Here are ten tactics abusers use, though the list is not complete. Sztokman discusses all this because Donald Trump has been exhibiting all ten of these tactics.

1. Lying. PolitiFact found that Trump has more statements in their “pants on fire” category than all 21 other 2016 prez. candidates combined.

2. Denial. When caught in a lie, Trump denies he said it, even though his original words are easily verified. Both denial and lying change the rules of fair discourse and it is difficult to hold the abuser accountable.

3. Blame shifting. An example is Trump finally saying Obama was indeed born in America, but Hillary Clinton started it.

4. Move the goal posts. That means redefine the topic of conversation. Trump redirected a discussion of creating jobs into one of Clinton’s experience in politics.

5. Bait and Switch. It is similar to the previous one. Trump said, “I will release my tax returns when Hillary releases her deleted emails.” Clinton identified the tactic.

6. Projecting. The abuser accuses the victim of what he is being accused of. When Trump is accused of being dishonest, he accuses Hillary of being more dishonest.

7. Generalizing and exaggerating. Trump frequently says, “Everyone tells me.” That’s difficult to fact-check. He also describes every subject at hand as, “It’s a disaster,” or, “It’s the greatest.”

8. Yelling and shouting over. During the debate (which I avoided watching) Trump interrupted Hillary 50 times. His voice is his weapon of violence.

9. Fear-Mongering. Almost all of Trump’s platform positions incite fear. It is hard to fight back in an atmosphere of terror.

10. Body shaming. He did it during the debate by calling the Miss America contestant “Miss Piggy.”

Sztokman concludes:

These are some of the toxic tactics of emotional and verbal abuse that are becoming normalized in the 2016 elections – which only goes to show how acceptable we, as a society, allow toxic masculinity to be.