Where Do We Go From Here?

I have quoted from and posted any number of times an article by Ben Shapiro from before the 2016 election which compares uncritical Trump supporters to people in abusive relationships: “You Can’t Pretend Trump’s Flaws Away.” I have said, and still say, that it’s the best piece written at that time to explain the mindset that led normally sensible people to vote with enthusiasm for the man who now occupies the White House. Shapiro starts the article with a description of a friend who was dating a jerk. No one could convince her, however, that he was a jerk because she wasn’t in love with that real problematic person. She was in love with her fantasy version of him, and as long as that illusion persisted she simply could not be budged from her devotion. Then the great line:

It’s bizarre to realize that for large swaths of the Republican party, Donald Trump has become that abusive boyfriend.

But now we’re two and a half years into the first (and, I devoutly hope and pray, only) Trump term, and the blinders are starting to come off, at least for a few people. So my question is:

How should one deal with the deceived girlfriend? What if you’re the girlfriend?

In other words, what happens when the horrible realization starts sinking in that your well-meaning friends were telling the truth, and that you’ve put your trust in a monster? And how should your well-meaning friends treat you?

So here are some ideas that have been simmering in my overheated brain for awhile:

1. First, everyone has to admit the truth: this President is going off the rails. It’s akin to that horrible dawning realization that must occur when the abused/deceived spouse or romantic partner can’t avoid reality any longer. I’ve never had this experience (for which I am very thankful), but I know people who have and can somewhat imagine what it’s like. The ground shifting under your feet, the growing panic—it must be truly horrible.
2. The first priority is to stop the bleeding. In other words, once it becomes clear that the relationship, and the person, are toxic, there’s no reason to extend the pain. Sometimes you can’t just walk out the door, but you can begin planning to leave. There are lots of stories out there about abused women who plotted and planned for months to get themselves and their children out from under an abuser. In the case of Donald Trump, serious and rational people are suggesting, seriously and rationally, that Cabinet members and perhaps Senate majority leaders should walk into the Oval Office and insist that he resign. “You might need to get out. You might need to just walk off the field.”
3. Always, always, always: Remember that actions have consequence. Real damage is done by poor decisions. Children are born and grow up in a toxic environment. Real physical and emotional damage is inflicted. Chances to make good choices are precluded by the bad ones. And so it is in political choices. No, America will never, ever return to what she could have been if someone else had been elected in 2016. Our place on the world stage, our moral standing, our ability to stand together as a nation: all of these have been harmed. The late, great Charles Krauthammer said that the guardrails of democracy were holding, and indeed maybe they still are, but those guardrails are going to be dented and battered from this whole horrible process. They’ll never be in as good of shape as they were before the Trump train hit them.
4. Refrain from giving or receiving any kind of head-patting—the “You/I couldn’t have known” excuse. Everyone must hold to and be held to the truth, which is always there if you want to access it.

We will never achieve any kind of equilibrium, any kind of relationships that stretch across political divides, without everyone being willing to accept responsibility. Maybe those of us who saw the danger so clearly could have done more. I have always maintained that if only George Will and a few other respected conservatives had been willing to say, “Vote for Hillary!” we might have avoided this disaster by persuading 78,000 people in the swing states to go out and pull the lever for her. Will and his ilk believed, just like the rest of us, that she was going to win. His advice to the GOP was, “Grit your teeth, get through four years of a Hillary presidency, and then nominate somebody decent.” (And, he might have added, “for Heaven’s sake!”) But that advice was predicated on a Hillary (or Sanders, or whoever) victory. With a Trump victory that advice is useless. The GOP can’t “nominate somebody decent” now, unless by some miracle Trump does indeed walk away. (I have ideas for arguments that could be used. Anybody in the Trump White House interested? I’ll give them to you for free.)

So here’s my prediction, more than a year before November 2020:

The price of a Trump victory in 2016 is a Hillary squared (that is, Elizabeth Warren) in the White House and complete Democratic control of Congress. The GOP will be marginalized for a generation to come, if indeed it ever recovers. And it was all so unnecessary.

Just like that marriage between the beautiful 18-year-old girl and the 42-year-old womanizing alcoholic drug-dealing biker. She shoulda listened! But now everybody has to pitch in and help her pick up the pieces.