http://www.huffingtonpost.com/w-hunter-roberts/obama-abuse_b_333041.html">Check this out on HuffPo:
As Eugene Robinson noted in the Washington Post,
"If Obama ended world hunger, they'd accuse him of promoting obesity." This is the classic dilemma faced by victims of abuse. No matter what the victim does, they’ll be criticized ...or worse. The verbiage being hurled at President Obama sounds, to my twenty five years of counseling-trained ears, more like the rhetoric of abuse than of political discourse. An abusive relationship consists, not of respectful, or even heated, discussion between peers over an issue of mutual concern. Rather, one party puts the other down, and makes unfounded accusations regarding the motives, character, or abilities of their partner, which go far beyond any issue at hand. The accused party, confounded by the bizarre allegations, responds by attempting to answer, or appease, the accuser. When this happens, the parties are doing the dance of abuse and appeasement. In this dance, the abuser will never acknowledge anything done "right", or accept any compromise. This keeps the victim off balance, walking on egg shells, never knowing which way to turn to avoid further criticism and humiliation. No matter what the victim does to try to please, it will not satisfy an abuser. That’s because it’s not about the issue at hand, it’s about power and control. Abuse is unpredictable because the issue is merely a ploy. The abuser does not want to be satisfied. He is looking for an excuse or justification to abuse.
...
We can see this dynamic in operation over health care reform. The Republicans called it socialized medicine. So the Democrats, trying to be reasonable, took Single Payer off the table and even removed the public option. To hell with what the citizens wanted, Democrats were busy trying to appease their accuser, "See, what we want isn’t socialized medicine—look we’ll prove it. We’ll remove anything that could possibly look like that." That could have been a compromise in good faith, if the Republicans had accepted it. But they did not. Instead they did what abusers always do. They came up with another accusation," You’re trying to kill grandma!" (Abusers often become increasingly irrational in their accusations, as each previous objection is answered.) They compared healthcare reform to a Nazi plan, and accused the Democrats of plotting to kill newborns and disabled children. Democrats continued their appeasement tactics, still trying to get a bi-partisan bill. If you know anything about abuse, you know that was never going to happen. Why not? Because, from the point of view of an abuser, the other person is not just doing something wrong, which theoretically s/he could correct. They
are something wrong - fundamentally wrong. Like black. Or female. Or gay. Or child. Or liberal. Or Hutu. Take your pick — it could be any "other." Wrong by definition. Irrevocably and irredeemably bad and wrong.
...
If someone is, de facto, bad and wrong, then anything positive they do or get must be a mistake. Ergo, the Nobel Prize is, paradoxically, both worthless and undeserved. If Obama got it, the logic goes, since he is worthless, the prize must be worthless. But if it has value, Obama is such a piece of shit that he should give it back - like a child caught shoplifting... The RNC, Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh do not merely disagree with the President’s policies. They impugn his character, his citizenship, his patriotism, and his very being. Obama cannot do anything right, because, from their perspective,
who he is, is wrong. Period. ...
There is only one thing to do in the face of abuse: refuse to play your role. An abuser cannot abuse unless their partner is willing to appease, for the sake of the relationship,
or for the sake of bi-partisanship, which is the same thing. ...Appeasement, ironically, enrages the abuser more and adds to his disrespect. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, appeasement feeds the cycle of abuse. An abuser is like a drunk. You don’t argue with a drunk. ... You must walk away, without appeasing or returning the abuse, and do what you think is right.
Full Huffington Post article
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/w-hunter-roberts/obama-abuse_b_333041.html">here.
">things abusers typically say compared with quotes from conservatives.
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