Second verse, same as the first

"You're going to do what I tell you whether you like it or not." That's what he'd say. At first, Sarah was shocked. It was the sudden violence that left her uneven and scared, knowing the life she thought she had with him was — none of it — real. Next thing you know, she was pushed to the bedroom floor. (Sarah's name, like others in this column, has been changed for her privacy.) She heard the echo of those words from the White House last week. This time, it was the president, and he was talking about taking over a whole other country. "We are going to do something in Greenland, whether they like it or not," he told reporters about the self-autonomous territory of Denmark. "I would like to make a deal the easy way but if we don't do it the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way." She froze. She felt like she couldn't breathe. "It's something every survivor has heard," Maria explained. There is no equal power in those statements. Those are abuses of powers, which means every perpetrator that uses them makes the other person a victim." For two decades, she has worked as a licensed counselor, helping clients work their way through the aftermath of domestic violence, sexual abuse, rape, and other victimizations. The nonstop barrage of brutal headlines is leading to an uptick in clients, she said. "This is triggering people. It is completely awful for survivors of domestic violence, rape, assault of all kinds," Maria said. "They know what it's like to be forced, to have their bodies touched against their will, and nothing they say matters." When Vice President J.D. Vance released the cell phone video of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross after he shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis Jan. 7, it revealed that Good's last words, to Ross, were: "I'm not mad at you." Just 26 seconds and three shots later, as she was dead or dying and he was walking away from her body, Ross's last words to Good were: "F---ing bitch." Every woman recognized that. We've collected the "FB" cards, most of us, since before puberty. It's the price women pay for displeasure, and sometimes it is as simple as declining a date, passing your car on the highway, doing better than you in school or — God forbid — on the job. A certain kind of man tosses it out like malevolent confetti any time he's told "no," even after you're dead. That a video of a woman being shot in the face, knowing her 6-year-old is waiting for her at school, her wife is wailing in the streets, and her old dog is confused and shellshocked in the back of her bloody minivan in the middle of a city street in Minneapolis while a man struts around calling her a "f—king bitch," is released by the vice president of America and tells the rest of us we owe him gratitude is inconceivable. Is this the country of Lincoln? Of Kennedy? Of Carter? Of FDR and Eisenhower? Have we no shame? And this isn't just hurting females. "I have seen more men in my counseling office weeping just recently than I have in the last 40 years," Maria said. "Every boy that has ever been beaten down by an abusive father, every grown man that was bullied, who felt like he was helpless to keep the abuse in his home from happening when he was just a kid." The implied malice doesn't escape the notice of others, either. My friend's son is adopted. He is a powerhouse wrestler, built like a man but he is a minor. He was born right here in Ohio, but he is Guatemalan. "I am terrified and sad all the time," she said. She cries all the time while she orders multiple copies of his birth certificate. She wants one in his school backpack, his wrestling backpack, his wallet, in her stuff. Her other son is also adopted, but she doesn't mention a worry for him. She doesn't have to; he is white. Another friend lives near a Somali neighborhood. Nowadays when the sun goes down, she hears the whistles start; then the screaming. Her own niece is, who is half-Black, has grown afraid of going to the grocery store. She drives nearly an hour away to do shop in towns where ICE is not active. Her daughter, a lanky beauty the color of a cappuccino like her mother, worries she will go to elementary school and come home to find her home empty and her mother snatched. They are American, but they are brown in an ICE town. Many of her classmates are Nepali, Mexican, Somali, and legal — but they watch the news, and Minneapolis is showing them there are no rules. The anxiety is rife among classmates whose biggest care should be what's for lunch and if tomorrow is a snow day. Are we great yet? My friend Jacki survived an abusive boyfriend 30 years ago, but her body still remembers. Trauma teaches patterns that embed in muscle memory. "So when I watch the chaos and depravity of the U.S. government unfold — lies normalized, people dehumanized, suffering turned into policy — it doesn't stay abstract," she said. She does what she can to quell the rising fears, staying grounded, but sees the same pervasive sense of "you can't escape and you know it's the end unless you can somehow placate this anger and venom" being played out in speeches, in invasions, in threatened military actions on American soil. "I know what harm looks like now, even when it wears a flag or a suit or a smile." Contact Chronicle-Telegram columnist Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com.