"Women in power are targets of abuse"

That's an LA Times headline today.

The article goes on to say that mayors are subject to abuse at greater levels than the average person and

"A recent study published in the academic journal State and Local Government Review found that mayors — women and men — face greater levels of physical violence and psychological abuse than those in the general U.S. workforce, with social media being the most common channel for that abuse.
Female mayors were not only much more likely to face some form of violence or abuse, but they were also more likely to experience abuse of a sexualized nature.
“Women are facing more of this kind of abuse and violence, and more types of it,” Sue Thomas, a research scientist and co-author of the study, told me."

More specifically:

"If you are a woman who is so bold as to inhabit a vaguely public stage, chances are high that you will be called a lot of things that can’t be printed in a family newspaper. And then some.
It’s a truism that unfortunately appears to transcend industry or geography. Exist in public, and eventually an online mob will nitpick your looks, rate your sexual desirability in relation to your ability to do your job, and probably make threats vague and specific — regardless of whether you’re a female journalist, the founder of an indie game studio or trying to run a small city in the Central Coast region of California."

I would argue that one reason Trump's base doesn't shrink any further is that a sizable section of it includes men who are very much like Trump:  they're insecure about themselves, need constant adulation, are abusive to people with less power than themselves, particularly women. Trump is a role model who helps vindicate their own terrible behavior.  Of course they love him and vote for him.

I've long believed that the way to improve people's social interactions is to work to improve parenting.  How we are raised affects how we feel about ourselves and how we deal with conflict.  As much as I dote on my grandchildren, it's also true that babies can be very annoying and exhausting tor parents who aren't prepared for that responsibility. Even for parents who do everything right.   And for parents whose own parents were poor models, learning how to be a nurturing yet firm parent is difficult.

A study published by the National Institute of Justice, for example, states:

"Using carefully developed methods for eliciting retrospective reports of childhood abuse and neglect, a new study of inmates in a New York prison found that 68 percent of the sample reported some form of childhood victimization and 23 percent reported experiencing multiple forms of abuse and neglect, including physical and sexual abuse. These findings provide support for the belief that the majority of incarcerated offenders have likely experienced some type of childhood abuse or neglect."

The National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse posts:

"Based on the reports we have, it's conservatively believed that in today's society 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys WILL BE sexually molested before they are 18 years old -- which means 1 in 5 of America's youth, or fully 20% to 25% of the population !!
In addition, as we mentioned we're concerned here at NAASCA with helping stop ALL kinds of child abuse, including sexual abuse, violence, emotional trauma and neglect, and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) believes that close to 50% of our youth will experience at least one of these.
In it's most recent study, a few years ago, the CDC estimated the lifetime cost to society for dealing with all issues related to the child abuse of just one year's worth of traumatized kids is $585 billion, an astonishing figure that obviously repeats each year !!!" (emphasis added)

I would argue that having loving parents is the best inheritance any child could have.  These are the truly privileged people in our society.  Furthermore it's clear that many people manage to survive and thrive despite forms of childhood mistreatment.  Just assume  kids raised in poverty manage to get financially secure. But they are the exception now.

All of us are guilty of neglecting these kids to some degree.  The Democrats, who championed all sorts of 'outsiders' saw whites - particularly white males - as a generalized privileged group.  They didn't recognize the pressures on males, they didn't distinguish those white males who had been physically or emotionally abused.  And in part that helped build a base for a candidate like Trump.

But the Republican steadfast focus on abortion is also at fault.  Even if the figure cited above of 50% of American youth experiencing some form of abuse is high (and remember, it could also be low), that's huge!   But the pro-life crowd focused mostly on abortion, not on healthy parenting for kids, not on sex education and the prevention of unwanted kids.  

There are a lot of hurting people in the US.  Online anonymity along with an abuser in the White House has increased their opportunities to vent their own self-anger on to others.  

This is not an issue that will be resolved by just cracking down on apprehended offenders.  It needs a much larger societal approach to raising kids and developing a population of individuals who feel good about who they are.