The Abuser’s Argument

I have some experience of Domestic Violence in my family and know a lot of other people who have been involved in that situation which makes a lot of sense, it’s kind of pervasive and the more aware you are the more you see, even in some interactions considered “normal”.

Two words- Mika Brzezinski. Joe Scarborough is a horrible human being and you should never forget that even if he agrees with you.

It is disturbung if understandable that victims accept the argument that they have brought it on themselves because in the largest sense it’s true, you make life choices and they have effects.

But that doesn’t excuse the Abuser’s evil.

Nikki Haley reveals how Republicans will absolve themselves of Trump
By Paul Waldman, Washington Post
12/12/19

But in this case she’s arguing that if conservatives take the most despicable positions, like supporting racist symbology, the fault is only that of liberals and not conservatives themselves. Haley excuses them, saying that only “a small number of hardened white-supremacist racists” share Dylann Roof’s “sick and twisted view of the flag.”

In fact, white supremacists, Roof included, have a perfectly accurate view of what the Confederate flag represents, one they share with most every liberal: that it’s a symbol of hate and oppression. They just think that’s a reason to fly it, not a reason to take it down.

But now Haley argues that her fellow Republicans, with their benevolent and warm-hearted view of the Confederate flag, are so sensitive that criticism from liberals will cause them to embrace positions they shouldn’t. This is something we’ve been hearing since the beginning of the Trump presidency, echoed in the words of every domestic abuser: Look what you made us do.

We didn’t want to line up behind someone as corrupt and immoral as Trump, but what choice did liberals give us? They were so mean, we just had to. They called us racists, so we had to become racist. They called us extremists, so we had to become extremist.

“This is how you got Trump,” conservatives said every time some liberal excess emerged. We Republicans would much rather have made a less repugnant politician our champion, but once Hillary Clinton said half of Trump’s supporters were deplorable, it hurt our feelings so much that the rest of us just had to become deplorable, too.

Yes, we supported ripping children from their parents’ arms and putting them in cages. We said it’s fine if the president gives White House jobs to his family members and directs taxpayer money to his own bank account. We defended him for pressuring a foreign government to help his reelection campaign. We nodded along at his bigotry, his misogyny, his hate-mongering, his corruption, his dishonesty, his contempt for basic human decency. But it’s not our fault.

The issue of the Confederate flag in South Carolina may be settled. But make no mistake, Haley is arguing about the future, not the past. Hers is the template for how Republicans will excuse and explain away all their actions during the Trump years.

Whenever they’re called to account for their role in enabling everything Trump has done and the way their party has been so thoroughly fashioned in his image, they’ll insist that they bear no moral responsibility for what they became and what they abetted. Don’t let them get away with it.