The Cruelty Is the Point

[Algernon Moncrieff]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/

Even those who believe that Ford fabricated her account, or was mistaken in its details, can see that the president’s mocking of her testimony renders all sexual-assault survivors collateral damage. Anyone afraid of coming forward, afraid that they would not be believed, can now look to the president to see their fears realized. Once malice is embraced as a virtue, it is impossible to contain.

The cruelty of the Trump administration’s policies, and the ritual rhetorical flaying of his targets before his supporters, are intimately connected. As Lili Loofbourow wrote of the Kavanaugh incident in Slate, adolescent male cruelty towards women is a bonding mechanism, a vehicle for intimacy through contempt. The white men in the lynching photos are not merely smiling because of what they have done, but because they did it together.

We can hear the spectacle of cruel laughter throughout the Trump era. There were the border patrol agents cracking up at the crying immigrant children separated from their families, and the Trump adviser who delighted white supremacists when he mocked a child with down syndrome who was separated from her mother. There were the police who laughed uproariously when the president encouraged them to abuse suspects, and the Fox News hosts mocking a survivor of the Pulse Nightclub massacre (and in the process inundating him with threats), the survivors of sexual assault protesting Senator Jeff Flake, the women who said the president sexually assaulted them, and the teen survivors of the Parkland school shooting. There was the president mocking Puerto Rican accents shortly after thousands were killed and tens of thousands displaced by Hurricane Maria, the black athletes protesting unjustified killings by police, the women of the #MeToo movement who have come forward with stories of sexual abuse, and the disabled reporter whose crime was reporting on Trump truthfully. It is not just that they enjoy this cruelty, it is that they enjoy it with each other. Their shared laughter at the suffering of others is an adhesive that binds them to each other, and to Trump.

[SharonAnn]

1. Cruelty is the hallmark of this adminisgtration.

[BigmanPigman]

2. They're sadists.

One of the psychiatrists who wrote "Duty To Warn" said this.

[lunatica]

3. Rec for a profound observation about shared cruelty

[Silver Gaia]

4. OMG... The truth in this is overwhelming...

I could barely finish reading this it hurt so much. I felt like my heart was being crushed as I read.

[Demovictory9]

5. ,,

Link to tweet

[Just my opinion]

6. Listen and listen well

Donald Trump is the Antichrist, the personification of Evil and Hate.

Every day it becomes more and more obvious

[Hekate]

8. If I were a believer, I would believe that too. He and his cult are evil evil people.

Welcome to DU.

[Just my opinion]

10. Thank you

This reply is my 10th posting so I can now post my first OP. I hope you will read it. It explains why Trump is afraid of Dr. Ford

[Hekate]

7. Always. Yes, this is profound.

[Dirty Socialist]

9. Aaaargh! I can't get this article on Facebook!

This is too important to ignore.

[Dirty Socialist]

11. K & R

[oberliner]

12. This article is from the author of: "Obama's Immigration Plan Is Far Harsher Than Reagan's"

He also wrote: "Obama’s Empty Promises of Transparency on National Security"

[Algernon Moncrieff]

16. And yet the writer seems to have nailed the crux of Trumpism

Go figure?!

[Donkees]

13. ''the thing that traumatized her the most was the laughter''

[VOX]

14. Cruelty is a requirement to be a Republcan-- they're orgasmic over 45's heartlessness.

Republicans are defined by their simplistic and cruel attitudes, such as “to the victors go the spoils,” “I got mine, now get away from me,” and “Why should I pay for benefits to a bunch of illegal Mexicans?”

You cannot be a Republican if you show any mercy or compassion. Furthermore, as a loyal party member, you *must* exhibit animosity toward others based on gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. Your sense of “humor” must respond with laughter at the pain of others, especially the weak.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

17. It's like Mr. Potter became the good guy in "It's a Wonderful Life"

Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? In Trump's world, we take pride in having combined the workhouse and prison one into one efficient enterprise - and simultaneously filling camps with kids taken from their imprisoned parents.

[Bettie]

15. People keep telling me

"don't end friendships over politics"..."don't let this affect your relationships with family" and other such things.

This is about so much more than politics. It is about basic human decency. It is about cruelty.

I can never forget which people I personally know voted for this, I can never forget how during the campaign their masks began to slip and how after the election, they tore them off and proudly showed the world who and what they really are.

Every day, those people double down on their nastiness and declare that their hate is a virtue.

The cruelty has always been there, the approval for abuse, the unbridled hate, they just felt they needed to hide it before.

Now it is out and they are proud of it.

Some day they will want to pretend they are decent people again. I will not forget. They don't get a pass and they can no longer say it was about Hillary, it was about wanting permission to be inhuman monsters.

[smirkymonkey]

18. This!

Thank YOU! I cannot bear their wanton cruelty and hatred. They are proud of it. They get off on it. I despise them for it.

[Bettie]

19. Mark them in your mind

and remember when it is no longer fashionable to wear hate like some kind of award.

They will eventually try to put those masks back on. I won't forget what is underneath. Never.