Presidential Gaslighting & 3 Million Woman March: The Future is Female

Thank you... to everyone who road uncomfortable buses for days to join nearly three million others to gather in DC (plus over 600 sister locations world wide) to enact democracy and to demonstrate the power of peacefully and inclusively and joyfully living out loud.

Watching the news all day yesterday, while working at home, it was stunning to see how Trumpism, not the man but the nightmare he is riding, pushes our already serious incivility problem to uncivil 2.0 and beyond.

We now have a commander-in-chief who rejects science, data, analysis and openly traffics in his own (conspiracy theory driven) set of 'facts' in brazen efforts to control each daily news cycle and gaslight all of us, citizens, opponents, talking heads…

… AND we have opposing forces in politics (loosely organized around our two parties) who no longer agree on a shared value that is foundational to democracy: an agreement to share the goal of finding ways to achieve agreements, to work together, to compromise, to be good sports--gracious winners and losers who put respect for the game (democracy) first.

President Trump adds gaslighting to the normal messaging efforts advanced by politicians on all sides. It might even be useful to compare his communication strategy to all the tools an abusive man uses to victimize women, gaslighting just one of these.

We need to respond more strategically.

Yesterday, as I watched CNN all day to keep track of the 3 million strong Woman’s March…

…CNN commentators were wondering out loud if Trump’s press secretary and his own CIA appearance were designed to distract us from the Woman’s March story to focus on an argument about his crowd size…even as they continued for hours to focus on the argument over his crowd size.

Today, in my wonderful local paper, the front page headline reads this:

President Visits CIA in Fresh Start

Trump Blames ‘feud’ on the media, which he also says misstated size of crowd for his inauguration

Many to most readers skim only the headlines for most stories (even more so as scanning displaces reading), so if we imagine that many readers are only reading the headline we know that they are concluding that the president is seeking a fresh start (if so ineffectively)and calling out the media for thwarting him (inaccurate). This headline is more like a Trump press release.

The article is good, but if the election taught us anything it is that in the face of Trumpist gaslighting we only strengthen his position by merely factchecking and expecting his lies to undermine him.

Sidebar: Gaslighting is a form of manipulation through persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying in an attempt to destabilize and delegitimize a target. Its intent is to sow seeds of doubt in the targets, hoping to make them question their own memory, perception, and sanity.

We cannot continue to just let this happen.

Yesterday on FB there was a 2 minute video showing the president’s press secretary denouncing the media with a statement filled with errors and lies about the crowd size…and the video was annotated so that each time he make a clearly inaccurate statement text appeared on the screen with the correction. We need more of this.

Today’s front page (and headline writing in general) needs to similarly figure out how to develop a new professional norm that is not designed to make us vulnerable to a president who is willing to gaslight us…

…a president bringing the skills of a brilliant huckster to the task of manipulating daily news cycles through persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying in an attempt to destabilize and delegitimize his opposition, as well as opposition/political communication in general. Its intent is to sow seeds of doubt among citizens and other elites (including those running media outlets), hoping to make them question their own memory, perception, and sanity.

I am not expert, but here are some suggested alternative headlines (and once we develop a practice that is more resistant to elite gaslighting we can then try to distil from that a professional norm to guide us).

President Visits CIA

Trump’s Seeks to Blame Media for His Twitter Assault on CIA

President’s Disrespectful Outreach to CIA

Trump Blames ‘feud’ with CIA on the media, but his twitter attacks on CIA tells another story

That being said, I leave it to my professional colleagues working in journalism to figure this out, because it is not my area and my only goal here is to share an observation I hope might help.

I still to figure out what I am going to do to more effectively resist Trumpism. 

It is easier to point to others and say ‘you are falling short,’ but what will I do? Where am I falling short? 

The march yesterday gave me the first real hope I have felt since election day, so maybe it is time for me to find local women and support their efforts to move into leadership positions, run for office, and more. 

Maybe I can find a new hope in a female future where I work hard to be a worthy and empowered follower.