Here There and Everywhere

“The Cruelty is the Point”

I was singing to the choir, complaining to my old high school friend about the tactics and strategies employed by the Trump administration, against immigrants, against the press, and against any citizen disagreeing with this administration’s viewpoint. “It all seems so intentional, so cruel,” I said.

“The cruelty is the point,” he responded. It was short, pithy, but that was weeks ago and I continue to ponder the phrase. I wondered why it sounds familiar – my friend used quote marks – so this morning, I googled it and got this very thorough AI response:

“The cruelty is the point” is a political phrase coined by The Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer in a prominent 2018 essay. [1, 2]

Origin and Meaning

• Coinage: Adam Serwer used the phrase in his October 2018 essay, “The Cruelty Is the Point”. [1, 2, 3]
• Core Argument: Serwer argued that the policies and public behavior of the Trump administration and its supporters were not accidentally harsh or crude, but intentionally designed to cause pain to marginalized groups. [1, 2]
• The Bond: He wrote that inflicting this pain creates a powerful sense of unity, pride, and shared identity among political supporters, binding them together through common opposition to outsiders, immigrants, and minority groups. [1]

Book Adaptation

• Publication: Serwer expanded his essays into a book titled The Cruelty Is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump’s America, published in June 2021. [1, 2]
• Themes: The book examines how modern political conflicts connect to deeper historical currents in the United States, including white supremacy, migration debates, police unions, and the legacy of the Lost Cause. [1, 2]

Usage and Legacy

• Political Lexicon: The phrase became a widely adopted descriptor in political commentary to characterize populist movements, harsh immigration rules (such as family separations), and rhetoric directed at political opponents. [1, 2, 3]
• Broader Application: Analysts and commentators frequently invoke the phrase outside the Trump administration to describe political strategies that rely on outraging rivals and signaling hostility toward specific demographic or social groups. [1, 2]

The original article in The Atlantic states:

“It is not just that the perpetrators of this cruelty enjoy it; it is that they enjoy it with one another. Their shared laughter at the suffering of others is an adhesive that binds them to one another, and to Trump.”

I urge you to read the October 2018 essay, and the book. From the beginning of the second Trump term, from the the very first day with the horrifying Presidential Edicts, the cruelty has been increasingly woven into public policy. The policies are Anti-American, anti-immigrant, anti-women and anti-everything I was taught to believe as I grew up – That we are created and born with equal rights, male and female, black, white, yellow, red and all the glorious colors in between. “Red and yellow, black and white, we are precious in His sight.”

Our priest told us from the pulpit this week that we are “to carry the light.” Each one of us, individually and together, carries the light. We can choose to be kind. We can reflect “the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

August 28, 2026 - Posted by intlxpatr | Character, Charity, Civility, Communication, Community, corruption, Economic Issues, Education, ExPat Life, Faith, Family Issues, Financial Issues, Health Issues, Interconnected, Leadership, Living Conditions, Political Issues, Privacy, Quality of Life Issues, Social Issues, Stranger in a Strange Land | Donald Trump, History, News, politics, Trump