The Left and the Language of Domestic Violence

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As the world crashes and burns, we can still find hope in some dimly-lit corners. One flickering light is what appears to be a growing refusal to let politicians treat us like domestic violence victims, as people who have to endure their incompetence, corruption and indifference — because, they would have us believe, we have no choice.

There is by now a large body of work on domestic violence (DV) and several nonprofits and state agencies work with and assist people in abusive relationships. Despite decades of activism and public education, one question still comes up in cases of DV: Why do people stay?

The answers are varied and complex. Economic dependence is one factor, as is the fear of losing a children or pets. Abusers will cut their victims off from networks of friends and family and then use their isolation to keep them close. The implicit and often explicit message is simple and devastating, “If you leave, who will take care of you? You have no one. And others might be much worse.”

This is the same logic used by politicians on the broad left. Recall Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016, telling voters, via a New York Times interview, “I’m the last thing standing between you and the apocalypse.” To this day, Clinton and her supporters, pink pussy hats aflame, still believe that she was done in by a wave of misogyny. While some of the backlash against her was definitely sexist, the reality is that voters rejected her because they knew she did not care about them. Her refusal to even tour Wisconsin and not campaign seriously in most places played a role in her loss.

In 2024, Kamala Harris took the Wisconsin lesson to heart and visited Milwaukee immediately after her announcement. But she inherited a legacy of arrogance from Clinton and treated voters with the same contempt. When Gaza protestors showed up at a rally, she fumed, “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.” Harris blames her loss on not having enough time, but the truth is that she saw a massive amount of support right out of the gate, breaking records with what ended up as $1.5 billion in contributions — most of which was squandered in useless advertising like placing her face on the Las Vegas Sphere. As I’ve written here, she offered nothing to voters, showing up The View to declare there was no difference between her and Joe Biden and assuming that Democrat voters would somehow cheer her on for picking Liz Cheney as an informal running mate. Throughout, her campaign slogan amounted to little more than, “Vote for me, or you get Trump.”

I’m the last thing standing between you and the apocalypse.

A similar tactic on the left can be seen in the United Kingdom, and is just as unsuccessful. To be clear, there are no easy parallels between UK and US politics, and it is ideologically and politically dangerous to assume any. But the similarities between the Right in both countries are unmistakable. Reform, led by Nigel Farage, simultaneously duplicates the right wing in the US and serves as a model. There is, of course, the usual social conservatism: Farage is openly contemptuous of women, and party leaders have spoken out against abortion rights and plan to scrap the 2010 Equality Act, which “legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society.” On immigration, Reform is especially vicious and proposes “ICE-style” deportations. Among its proposals is the creation of a new agency called “UK Deportation Command – with the capacity to detain 24,000 migrants at a time and deport up to 288,000 annually on five flights a day.”

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So far, British voters seem suspicious and wary of such measures, even as they grow more angry with Labour, the putatively left party that has responded to such proposals from Reform by promising to be even more repressive. Shabana Mahmood, current Home Secretary, has announced several anti-immigrant measures and even stopped study visas from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan. In addition, Afghan nationals will no longer be issued work visas. How does Mahmood sell such Labour policy changes? By invoking the spectre of Reform, and arguing that “If the left does not secure our borders, the hard right will be given their chance to try. Those who have been here legally for decades will suddenly hear a knock on their door one night, bundled into the back of a van, separated from children and grandchildren, and deported from this country that they have made their home.”

And yet, Mahmood also announced that refugee status accorded to those who seek it will now be temporary, lasting only 30 months. After that period, an applicant will have to leave if their home countries are declared “safe.” Previously, refugees “were granted five years of protection and allowed to bring their families, followed by possible permanent settlement.” We might briefly consider the obvious problems with such policies, including the fact that the current refugee and asylee crisis worldwide is the result of centuries of imperialism, colonisation, and war-making that hollowed out countries like Afghanistan. As bombs fall on Iran, in a “war” begun entirely for what Nathan Robinson describes as unfathomable reasons, more people will be pushed out of their homes and forced across borders to seek refuge. In other words, Labour wants the UK to be part of a world order that creates the very conditions that force people out of their homelands — but will not accept its responsibility to help them relocate.

But putting that aside, for now, consider the language adopted so fiercely by Mahmood and her Labour overlords: the same language used by violent men and women to keep their victims in their control.

“If you leave, things will be so much worse for you, because you have nowhere to go.”

“If the left does not secure our borders, the hard right will be given their chance to try. Those who have been here legally for decades will suddenly hear a knock on their door one night…”

What we are witnessing in real time is the language of domestic violence mapped onto an agenda for state terror.

Is it working?

Voters rejected Hillary Clinton, and rejected Kamala Harris. Both women and their supporters now spend their days wagging their fingers at voters or those who, disgusted at their non-choices, decided to abstain from voting. Liberal voters like to turn on the many leftists who protested Harris and sneer that the latter are responsible for the current state of things. They wilfully forget that what we see happening with ICE these days is only a continuation of a decades-long system that could have been ended by Barack Obama or Joe Biden, or that the Clintons, in what was effectively a co-presidency, created legislation like the 1996 Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) which effectively made undocumented immigrants more vulnerable and more likely to be criminalised. For instance, after 1996, minor offences, like driving under the influence or filing a false tax return, would now be classified as “aggravated felonies” and place immigrants on the fast track to deportation.

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Voters may not always be aware of such histories, but they are no longer willing to endure the kind of emotional blackmail that the putative left has used for decades. In the UK, Labour lost a significant by-election in the parliamentary constituency of Gorton and Denton, a seat that the party had held since 1931. The Green Party won, much to the shock of many analysts who thought they would see a Reform win, with Labour second. In North Carolina, seven-term Democratic state representative Carla Cunningham was defeated in a recent primary: she won only 22 percent of the vote while her opponent, Reverend Rodney Sadler, won 70 percent. Indications are that voters turned against her because she supported a pro-ICE bill and even went so far as to call for immigrants to assimilate, saying that “All cultures are not equal.”

Voters no longer care about the histories of left-leaning parties. Labour in the UK cannot bank on “safe” seats. Democrats failed to learn the lessons of Hillary Clinton’s arrogance, and cannot rely on voters simply rushing to support any Democratic candidate. “I’m the last thing standing between you and the apocalypse” or “If you want Donald Trump…” are no longer statements that scare people into voting for incompetent, arrogant candidates. Instead — and this is where we should see the greatest potential for hope — voters are deciding to take the plunge into the unknown. Zohran Mamdani may be, in the end, a Democrat, but his campaign was won on the back of a solid agenda for actual change. Similarly, hopeful politicians like Gavin Newsom — a monster who relishes tearing down homeless encampments and who has made it clear that billionaires are his priority — may well see an unexpected backlash if he cannot do more than rage against Trump while also flip-flopping on Gaza: he recently called Israel an apartheid state but only months ago denied that what was happening could be called a genocide.

The world is different now. We see people rushing out of their homes on cold Chicago mornings to protect immigrants, clad in nothing more than Garfield pajamas and t-shirts, willing to take on armed and masked ICE agents. We see a woman standing in a terrycloth robe and fuzzy slippers, determinedly recording what she sees. Yet another woman, returning home from work in a blue polkadot dress, decides to flip off an armored vehicle and puts her body between agents and immigrants.

The turning point for any victim of domestic violence is not when some rescuer shows up at their door, or even when a lawyer promises to see them through a notoriously labyrinthine process to ensure safety and escape. The turning point is always a moment of mental clarity, that moment when they decide that risking danger is preferable to more years of abuse. For thousands of men and women, leaving a home filled with threats requires a willingness to court uncertainty, a belief that not knowing what the days ahead will bring is preferable to the constant abuse.

For too long, politicians on the broad left, from liberals to leftists, have relied on scaring voters about the alternatives. But people all over the world are already witnessing the most nightmarish scenarios playing out, and many have watched friends and neighbours be dragged out of their homes to be disappeared into gulags. The UK has yet to see such scenes, but is already refusing to vote along old party lines. Labour’s racist demagoguery, voiced through Mahmood’s hideously exploitative and sensationalist rhetoric, may not have the desired effect of scaring voters towards it. The Green Party’s recent win does not necessarily signal a country-wide shift — and its members will do well to remember that all victories are contingent.

People are fed up and angry and willing to plunge into uncertainty. Fear is no longer a weapon.

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