Why I Unfollowed My Father And Why You Should Unfollow Trump.
I grew up with a father not too unlike (soon to be former) President Trump.
I experienced the emotional flailing of a grown man before ever hearing the name Donald Trump and have now witnessed both these men grapple for control and validation in terrifyingly similar ways. Though we were always on eggshells at home, never sure if our words or actions would become an undetected landmine under the floors of our house, we knew no different and seemed to be naturally adapted to survive in this battlefield like environment. Yes, it was hard but it was also normal, so we just dealt with his behavior.
Trump and my father need to maintain control in order for any semblance of peace to be possible for those around them. He frequently leverages his wealth and positions to first gain control over a person or situation. He uses favors, often in the form of money, like Trojan horses. Accepting anything from him always puts the recipient at risk of having to defend themselves against claims of being disloyal, unappreciative and undeserving of any future favors, should they upset him at any future point. As soon as he feels he is losing control over a person, he launches into battle armed with these personal attacks against his perceived opponent. We have watched Trump do this to multiple high-ranking officials recently, most notably Anthony Fauci. There is no winning with him if you are challenge his control over his reality.
My father and Trump share a similar desire be the center of attention, a desire that seems fueled by a need for validation. My father is loud and says outlandish, xenophobic things in public, often to the embarrassment of those around him. He posts misinformation memes on Facebook and comments on everything, which brings him the attention he needs to validate his false beliefs. When he is challenged by anyone he fights like his reality depends on it, because it does. Challenges to his way of thinking risk shattering all the beliefs he builds his entire identity upon, so he goes to great lengths to avoid succumbing to them by leveraging his fighting stamina. The combination of all these qualities plays out as follows: my father holds an (often bigoted) opinion, he expresses it to someone and the person is either too shocked by his statement to contend with it, thereby validating my father, or the person chooses to push back and consequently has to deal with his deployment of an armory of insults to character— sometimes loudly, in public place — until the victim concedes and walks away. My father feels that since they walked away, he has won. Validation accomplished.
Like with my father, both the negative and positive attention validates Trump. Donald Trump has lodged himself and the entire country into a predicament in which he wins if you hate him and he wins if you love him. By grabbing onto the most preposterous claims and right-wing conspiracy theories available online, he has guided his followers into believing “radical Democrats” are out to get him — and all of you, too — and any subversion of his power is a plot against American Democracy. With him as the central protagonist of the fight to protect America, you believe you are on the side of good if you are on his side, but if you fight against his narrative, or if you even question it, you suddenly prove his assertion that everyone is out to get him. You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
As I moved from adolescence to young adulthood and finally into full adulthood, I learned a lot about the way my father’s own mental health problems caused him to act erratically and irrationally (and I have empathy for him, truly). I promise, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Once you cut him off and stop validating him, he will be forced to question the validity of his thinking.
A few years ago I drew a boundary with my father by deciding I deserve peace and the way I deal with my father now mirrors how I dealt with Donald Trump for the last four years. I don’t engage with him, period. I am not friends with my father on Facebook, we do not call or text each other, and we definitely do not share Thanksgiving dinner. This is my recommendation to all of you for dealing with Trump, especially post-election. Do not engage. Draw the boundary and decide that you and the country deserve peace. Do no try to refute him by retweeting his lies and do not @ him anymore. Unfollow him; if you take away his twitter followers, you take away his voice and we need to stop elevating his voice. Stop writing op-eds about him, stop reporting on the (un)shockingly egregious things he said today. Without your attention his bigotry remains unvalidated. Only once there was no one left to fight against, will they turn to themselves and begin the real fight.
