In 1938 a play called Gas Light ran for a season in London.
It was an eerie production starring Vincent Price as an overbearing husband, who tries to convince his wife that she’s going insane by manipulating small elements in their home and when she points them out he tells her she’s delusional. Why? So he can creep around in the upstairs apartment to search for a murdered woman’s jewels.
But the wife clings to her only shred of reality: the gaslights in her home, which dim when in use upstairs. Yes, she might almost be convinced that she is only imagining the footsteps in the apartment above, but she can’t deny the stone cold reality of her gaslights flickering.
The term ‘gaslighting’ has been reappropriated in recent years, often in a domestic abuse situation, to describe the manipulation of a partner in an attempt to weaken and control.
But Teen Vogue’s Lauren Duca has applied the concept to Donald Trump and America, and it couldn’t be more perfect.
America is in a strange place right now.
It is Trump vs. The Media, and whilst from afar we're all shouting, "Don't believe him! He's the crazy one!" there is no doubt that for many Americans, they are having moments of doubt. Maybe Trump really is right? Maybe the media is wrong?
Lauren Duca is among many writers fighting to push her readers back into reality, campaigning for logic in her article, Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America.
"Trump won the Presidency by gas light," she writes. "His rise to power has awakened a force of bigotry by condoning and encouraging hatred, but also by normalizing deception."
In other words, he has told so many lies in such flagrant fashion that he is beginning to convince the public that it's the truth.
The list of mistruths and deceptions Trump has fed America both leading into and following his election to President is long and laughable.
Duca is quick to point out there are now so many, the public is becoming desensitised to their seriousness. Like the long-suffering wife in Gas Light, Trump's audience are being battered down by his insistence that it's not him, it's them.
The lie-list of Donald Trump is endless, and Duca doesn't hesitate to highlight some of his more outrageous claims.
"There are things you can and should be doing to turn your unrest into action, but first let's empower ourselves with information," Duca suggests.
"Insist on fact-checking every Trump statement you read, every headline you share or even relay to a friend over coffee...Do a thorough search before believing the agenda Trump distributes on Twitter. Refuse to accept information simply because it is fed to you, and don’t be afraid to ask questions."
Truth be told, the world was beginning a slow slide into 'lazy news'.
All of us are guilty for skimming a Twitter feed and absorbing wildly inaccurate news stories as fact. Even if it's not intentional, so much of what we know to be true is actually just fabricated information propagated by social media tactics, and soaked up like a sponge.
Maybe there is a silver lining to Trump's election, and that's forcing ourselves to always question the 'truth'.
Duca closes her article with a rallying call to action:
"As we spin our newfound rage into action, it is imperative to remember, across identities and across the aisle, as a country and as individuals, we have nothing without the truth."
Top Comments
I think the article is correct in the main, he is gaslighting. It's part of his proven and unique strategy which can also be defined as trolling. He does not debate the facts, he simply trolls and be it the Republicans, the Media or Clinton, they were all utterly unprepared to fight this way. Instead, looking at the dominance of media coverage he got, they did the worst thing possible, they fed the troll.
Check out the case for Trump being the Worlds Greatest Troll, very well argued and it will make you either wet yourself laughing or cry in grief depending on your point of view. And don't forget since the election, his first act was to troll China by talking to the President of Taiwan and then Troll Clinton by declaring he won the popular vote once you take out millions of illegals who voted Democrat.... international diplomacy is now being trolled.
https://m.youtube.com/watch...
People got sick of being told things by the media which don't fit in their daily lives and their perception of the world around them. What is often reported in media fits only a certain part of the country. When this happens people wonder if the media is getting this wrong, what else are they getting wrong. Trust in media falls and people turn to alternate sources of information.