Abuser-in-Chief

Donald Trump blamed the left for hate speech, while delivering a hate speech at the memorial for a man who said there was no such thing as hate speech.

I don’t remember my mom brushing my hair or tucking me in at night. I don’t remember the warmth that’s supposed to come with a mother in your early years — the softness of a bedtime story, the comfort of being held, the safety of knowing you were loved without question. None of that. What I remember from life with my mother is hiding. I remember doors slamming so hard the walls shook. I remember fists flying, voices turning into weapons, words sharp enough to cut through bone. I remember that kind of silence that comes after the storm, where you sit frozen, listening, wondering if it’s finally over — or if the next blow is still coming.

What stayed with me most from those years wasn’t even the pain itself, but the fear that burrowed into my chest and never left. The kind of fear that teaches you too early that the world is not safe, that even the people who are supposed to protect you can be the ones who wound you most. That fear rewrites your childhood. It seeps into your bones and whispers that you are never really secure, never really enough.

I don’t remember tenderness from her. I don’t remember trust. I remember shadows. I remember running. I remember trying to make myself smaller and quieter, as if disappearing might keep me safe. That was my childhood with my mother. Not bedtime kisses or warm kitchens or motherly pride — but survival.

That’s why I don’t need anyone to explain him to me. I know what an abuser looks like. I know what it feels like to live inside someone else’s rage, to be diminished by their contempt, to always wonder when the next blow — verbal or physical — is coming. That twisted curl on his face, that delight he takes in humiliating people, that hunger he has for control and fear — I’ve lived with that before.

And once you’ve survived it, you never forget it.

That’s why I can’t just shrug and call this politics. Because I know exactly what I’m looking at. I’ve seen it before. I’ve felt it before. I’ve lived it. And there are nights burned into me that I will never escape.

One of them was in the parking lot of a resort in the Poconos. My mother sat behind the wheel, drunk and seething, gripping it like she was about to rip it off. She turned to me, her face twisted, and hissed: “You know your father never wanted you, don’t you? He wanted you aborted.” I was a kid. Just a kid. And she chose that moment to take the one piece of ground I thought was solid — my dad’s love — and set it on fire.

It wasn’t the only night like that, but it’s one of the nights I remember most vividly, most viscerally. It’s coded into my DNA now — the lesson that abusers will always go for the jugular, always look for the place you feel safest and try to rip it away.

And that’s why Trump feels so familiar to me. He reminds me of my mom — of the darkest parts of her. The contempt. The rage. The way she could twist love into a weapon and turn vulnerability into shame. When I see him sneering on stage, mocking the weak, declaring his hatred, I don’t see a politician being blunt. I see what I’ve always seen: an abuser in action.

Because that’s what abusers do. They find your seam, and they jam the knife in. They want you to believe you don’t deserve love. That you’re worthless. That the hurt is your fault.

So, when I saw the clip of Donald Trump at Charlie Kirk’s memorial yesterday, I knew exactly what I was looking at. I didn’t need the chyron. I didn’t need the commentary. I recognized the venomous smile, the contempt, the glee he takes in cutting people down. Because I’ve lived it. I’ve been on the receiving end of that acid grin before.

And let’s be real: this wasn’t a memorial. This was a circus. Pyrotechnics shooting off like it was the Super Bowl halftime show, donation ads scrolling across the screens, the crowd howling like they’d paid for front-row seats to WWE. A man had been murdered, but Trump treated it like just another stop on his traveling hate show. He barely mentioned Kirk, and when he did, he made it about himself. He babbled about tariffs. About autism. About enemies. Always enemies. And then came the line — the one that dropped my stomach.

He stood on that stage, in front of a widow, in front of grieving people, and said he hated half the country. That he didn’t wish them well. The President of the United States declaring that hatred is his guiding principle.

And the crowd roared.

That wasn’t a slip. That wasn’t “off the cuff.” That’s who he is. He doesn’t know how to honor anyone else because he doesn’t care about anyone else. He doesn’t understand grief, or empathy, or decency. He only understands domination. He only understands breaking people down so he can feel taller standing on their backs.

And it didn’t stop there. Just months ago, Joe Biden announced he had aggressive prostate cancer. Most people would stop. Most people would feel at least the smallest pang of empathy. Not Trump. As recently as the other day he sneered: “If you feel sorry for him, don’t feel so sorry, because he’s vicious.” He called Biden “not a smart person, but a somewhat vicious person,” as if a cancer diagnosis was just another chance to spit in someone’s face.

That’s who he is. He looks at sickness and sees weakness. He looks at suffering and sees opportunity. He is wretched. He is heartless. He is malevolent and malicious. And he’s proud of it.

When Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were brutally murdered in their own home, Trump was asked if he’d called Governor Tim Walz to offer condolences. He said he didn’t know who she was. He said he wouldn’t call unless Walz asked. As if compassion were some bargaining chip he could trade. As if sympathy were beneath him. He couldn’t even fake humanity for a family that had just been slaughtered.

That’s who he is.

It wasn’t only Trump. Stephen Miller slithered out his lines like they’d been cribbed straight from a 1930s Nazi rally. He talked about “wickedness” and “victory,” about purging the unworthy, about drawing battle lines between the “pure” and the “impure.” It is the same script authoritarians have always used: reduce human beings to caricatures, declare them enemies of the people, strip them of their humanity, and then dare your followers not to cheer. History has shown us where that road leads, and it does not end in freedom.

And yet too many in the press still cover it like theater. Still reach for euphemisms like “heated remarks,” as if we’re talking about a bad debate club, not the open rehearsal of fascism. Still pretend this is politics, when what we’re watching is the deliberate corrosion of democracy. That normalization is its own toxin — it seeps in, dulls our alarm, and tells us the unthinkable is just another headline. And if we stop naming it for what it is, we are not observers anymore. We’re accomplices.

I know what it feels like when cruelty becomes the air you breathe. You start to believe it’s normal. You start to think maybe you deserve it. You lower your expectations so far that you forget what tenderness even feels like. That’s what he wants. That’s what they want. That’s what every abuser wants.

And here we are, back under his thumb again. Unfortunately, by the slimmest of margins, a self-sabotaging plurality of Americans returned our country to having an Abuser-in-Chief. Every insult, every contemptuous remark, every declaration of hatred once again carries the seal of the presidency. But this time it’s worse. The guardrails from the first season of this shitshow are gone. The so-called gatekeepers who once tried — however feebly — to contain him? Gone too. All that’s left are sycophants, enablers, and taint supping toadies. Hostility isn’t just tolerated at the top of our government — it’s been enthroned there.

None of this should surprise us. He incited a deadly attack on our Capitol to cling to power, and now, back in the Oval Office, he pardoned the very people who carried it out. That’s not leadership. That’s betrayal. That’s a man spitting in the face of the country he swore to serve. He has shown us exactly who he is, again and again, and he will not change. He cannot change.

To shrug and call this “politics” is not just naïve — it’s fatal. Because what we are watching is not politics at all, but the corrosion of our national soul.

So, say it out loud. Write it. Shout it. Teach it. REPORT ON IT! This is not normal! This is not okay! And as long as Donald Trump stands on stages to declare his hatred, our job is to stand taller and say the truth: he is indecent, abusive, unfit. Not a leader, but a predator. Not a president, but an abuser in chief.

Of course, this isn’t really about what we need to do — we’re already doing it. It’s about what the mainstream media, and anyone still cowering in silence, needs to do. Because silence isn’t neutral — it’s surrender. It hands the microphone to a bully and pretends that’s balance. And I need to be clear — this isn’t just about him. It’s about the crowd that roars for him too. The ones who leap to their feet when he says he hates half the country. The ones who fist-pump when he spits bile and take it as permission to be their worst selves. They need to know we see them too. They need to know this isn’t patriotism — it’s corrosion. It isn’t strength — it’s rot. Every cheer is a confession of their own emptiness. Every laugh is proof of how small they’ve let themselves become. And we aren’t pretending it’s normal. We’re calling it what it is: indecency on parade, depravity dressed up as politics. And the minute we stop saying that out loud, the minute we start shrugging and moving on, is the minute they win.

I know what happens when you live under the shadow of an abuser. I know what it does to your spirit to wake up every day in the grip of someone else’s rage. And I know the power it takes to finally say enough. So, I will not normalize this. I will not let my children inherit this. And I sure as shit will not stop fighting until the day the rest of America says enough too.

And with that, today’s song:

I love you guys!

Stay sassy, stay strong and stay in the fucking fight.

💙 Jo