Trump to America: If I can’t have you, nobody can
Stephen H. Provost
Donald Trump has been compared to an abusive, gaslighting boyfriend.
The first presidential debate of 2020 proved it’s even worse than that.
Trump has been verbally abusive, emotionally abusive, and he’s been accused by many women of being physically abusive.
Some abusers, however, are “just” abusive within a relationship (as if that weren’t bad enough). Some continue to be abusive once the relationship’s over.
He’s the guy who says, “If I can’t have you, nobody can.”
That’s scary.
And that’s exactly what he was saying to the American people during Tuesday night’s debate. What we saw was a man who realized the object of his obsession was trying to walk away – not just away from him, but TO an alternative: Joe Biden.
Trump’s response? Seek to eliminate the competition by verbally bludgeoning him by any means necessary.
Biden did as well as could be expected under that barrage of abuse, but the Democratic nominee isn’t Trump’s real target. We are. He’s already preparing for what will happen if we walk away from him and choose Biden instead.
He’ll refuse to accept the results of the election and seek to undermine them, just like an obsessive ex refuses to accept any new connection a former partner makes.
In analyzing the debate, investigative journalist and author Bob Woodward said on MSNBC that he’d “never seen anything like it,” adding that “I don’t think it’s ever happened before.”
Not on a presidential debate stage, certainly. But context shouldn’t blind us to what’s happening here. How often have we read news stories about individuals too weak to handle rejection? Men who violently assault women who have the audacity to walk away from their abuser? That’s what Trump’s doing to us: He’s assaulting our democracy.
Psychology Today describes the obsessive ex like this: “an immature, self-centered individual who, in the relationship, constantly craved or demanded attention and affection.”
The article continues: “Stalking and other forms of unwanted pursuit may be used after a breakup in an attempt to maintain or re-establish an intimate relationship. Taken to the extreme, the obsessive ex may explode in a murderous rage out of the mistaken impression that the very essence of who they are will be psychologically destroyed if they don’t respond to the situation.”
This is the position Trump finds himself in. He believes the essence of who he is — a “winner” who’s entitled to “attention and affection” — is at risk.
And like an obsessive ex, he’s out to defend it at any cost.
If the cost is our democracy, he’s fine with that. Some obsessive exes stalk their targets, and Trump’s certainly doing this: He’s telling his supporters to “monitor” polling places, enlisting them as his proxy stalkers. But other obsessive exes don’t stop there. They attack and even kill their targets.
That’s what Donald Trump is trying to do to our values and our democracy, because if he can’t have us, nobody can.
And we can’t have Joe Biden, our values, our republic, or anything else that doesn’t revolve around him.
Stephen H. Provost is the author of more than 20 books and a former journalist at four daily newspapers in California. His books “Political Psychosis” and “Media Meltdown in the Age of Trump” examine the Trump presidency.