Whatever one thinks of the national news media, it seems clear that their insistence on reporting every detail of what President Trump has said or done (or tweeted) over the last four years has played a major role in ratcheting up the tension that so many of us have felt as we waited with bated breath for the next bomb to drop.
The media’s Trump fascination has left Americans on all sides of the political spectrum thinking, feeling and acting in ways that resemble people with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).
The analogy isn’t perfect, of course, and I certainly don’t want to diminish the pain and suffering endured by people who have experienced the horrors of war or domestic abuse. But analyzing our current national political climate through the lens of PTSD can still be enlightening.
According to the Mayo Clinic, “Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that’s triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it.” It can arise from exposure to a single horrific event (e.g., 9/11), a series of painful events (e.g., repeated domestic abuse), or a deeply stressful ongoing situation (e.g., living in a war zone).
Symptoms of PTSD include recurrent, unwanted thoughts about the traumatic situation; avoidance of people and situations that stir up memories of the event; persistently negative thoughts about oneself, other people, and the world in general; and emotional fragility, as evidenced by being “on edge” all the time — hypersensitive to perceived dangers, distrustful toward others, easily angered, etc. People with PTSD view the world as a dangerous place where constant vigilance is required to guard against what others would see as irrational fears. Left untreated, PTSD can lead to severe anxiety or depression, physical harm toward oneself or others, and even suicide.
Long before the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, behaviors resembling PTSD could be seen at both ends of the American political spectrum.
To progressives, the election of Donald Trump in 2016 was a deeply traumatic event. Most had taken for granted that Hilary Clinton would become the next president and lead the country further in the direction that had prevailed in the Obama years. Instead, they were faced with four years of a president who was the polar opposite of President Barack Obama, a man who embodied everything that they believed was wrong with America.
The shock deepened as Trump proceeded to dismantle or reverse one after another of Obama’s programs over the next four years while also promoting programs that seemed positively evil to progressives, from cutting environmental protections to removing children from their parents at the border to cutting benefits for the poor to pushing for tax cuts that enriched those at the top while giving peanuts to those who truly needed it. Every news cycle brought more bad news as Trump seemingly embraced white supremacists and dictators while attacking foreign allies and the mainstream press, not to mention lying continually.
Like a spouse in an abusive marriage, progressives responded with fear, anger and desperation. Trump was not simply a politician with a different vision for America and a boorish personality; he was an agent of evil, a clear and present danger to the nation who had to be stopped at all costs. Progressives became hypersensitive, obsessing over everything that Trump said or did and interpreting everything that he said or proposed in the darkest possible light. If Trump said it, it had to be wrong; if he proposed it, it had to be fought. Anyone who suggested otherwise was viewed as a traitor. The demonization was complete.
Meanwhile, something similar was happening on the conservative side. Those who voted for Trump were reeling from years of what they regarded as attacks on their beliefs and values by those who held power in Washington, Hollywood and other bastions of liberalism. The legalization of abortion and gay marriage, the rise of multiculturalism and globalization, the normalization of sex and violence as entertainment, the blurring of traditional gender roles, the relegation of religion (particularly Christianity) to the margins of public discourse — these and other liberalizing trends were as traumatic to conservatives as the Trump era was to progressives.
The trauma intensified for many with the election of Barack Obama and the candidacy of Hilary Clinton. Their rise to prominence, together with others like them, signaled a dangerous shift in the history of the country as power was transferred from the white Christian men who had traditionally ruled the nation to women, minorities, secularists and non-Christians. To conservatives, this was a dangerous betrayal of American history and values. The future of the nation was at stake.
The response was predictable. Like an abused spouse, they struggled to defend themselves against their attackers, embracing darkly irrational conspiracy theories that made sense of their suffering and flailing about for anything that would bring the abuse to an end.
Along came Trump, a new suitor who promised to put an end to their suffering and restore them to the position of security and power that they had enjoyed in the nation’s youth. All they had to do was leave their current spouse and devote themselves unreservedly to him.
Is it any wonder that people who felt so battered and abused would embrace such a man as their savior? Many an abused spouse has done the same thing. Should we be surprised when they remain loyal to him when he turns out to be less of an angel that they had thought? Anything is better than a return to their former position.
In the real world, escaping from an abusive spouse is undoubtedly a good decision. With loving support and counseling, a person who has been abused can overcome the effects of PTSD and live a rewarding life. But things don’t always work out that way; sometimes an abused person jumps into the arms of a new partner who turns out to be as false and abusive as the former one, and the cycle begins anew.
The same thing can happen in the political realm if we don’t learn from experience. Have conservatives learned to be more skeptical of the next Trump-like savior who comes along, or will they keep jumping into bed with any candidate who promises to support their cause, regardless of personal character?
Have progressives learned to take seriously the fears and concerns that move conservatives to embrace flawed candidates like Trump, or will they continue to plow ahead and demonize anyone who distrusts aspects of their vision for America?
Can we overcome our national case of PTSD (as of Wednesday, “Post-Trump Stress Disorder”), or will we remain captive to our fears?
The future of our nation hangs on how we answer these questions.
(Chris Stanley, a professor of theology at St. Bonaventure University, lives in Allegany.)
