A major reason for Donald Trump’s appeal during the 2016 Presidential campaign was: “He’s not like other politicians.”
And he wasn’t.
The vast majority of politicians adhere to an unwritten rule: Even when you criticize another politician, you do so in a reasonably dignified manner.
Trump threw that rule—along with many others—out the window. In its place, he gave his opponents—Republican and Democrat—a series of disparaging nicknames.
And, as President, he has continued to do so.
His main sources of public defamation have been Twitter and the speeches he makes. Among the insulting nicknames have included:
- “Jeff Flakey” – Jeff Flake, Arizona United States Senator.
- “Crazy Megyn” – Megyn Kelly, Fox News’ then-anchor, perhaps the only member of this Right-wing propaganda outlet that Trump disliked.
- “Liddle Bob Corker” – Bob Corker, United States Senator from Tennessee
- “Psycho Joe” and “Dumb as a Rock Mika” – Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
- “Lyin’ Ted” – Texas United States Senator Eduardo “Ted” Cruz.
- “Crazy Bernie” – Vermont United States Senator Bernie Sanders.
- “Low Energy Jeb” – Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida.
- “Crooked Hillary” – Hillary Clinton, former First Lady, New York United States Senator and Secretary of State.
- “Little Marco” – Florida United States Senator Marco Rubio.
- “Rocket Man” – North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un (because of his series of missile launches)
- “Al Frankenstein” – Al Franken, United States Senator from Minnesota.
- “Pocahontas” – Elizabeth Warren, United States Senator from Massachusetts.
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On May 27, 2016, Shields—a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative—reached some disturbingly similar conclusions about the character of Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
David Brooks and Mark Shields
MARK SHIELDS: “Donald Trump gratuitously slandered Ted Cruz’s wife. He libeled Ted Cruz’s father for being potentially part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of the president of the United States, suggesting that he was somehow a fellow traveler in that.
“This is a libel. You don’t get over it….
“…I think this man may be addicted to the roar of the grease paint and the sound of the crowd, or however it goes, smell of the crowd.”
Donald Trump
DAVID BROOKS: “Trump, for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius. And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco [Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].
“And that’s a word. And that’s how marketing works. It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under.
“It sticks, and it diminishes. And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. And she [Hillary Clinton] just comes with, ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’
“These are words that are not exciting people. And her campaign style has gotten, if anything…a little more stagnant and more flat.”
Only one opponent—who was not a Presidential candidate—managed to stand up to Trump: Massachusetts U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren. Whenever Trump attacks her, Warren strikes back—sometimes even more harshly.
As Mark Shields noted:
“Elizabeth Warren gets under Donald Trump’s skin. And I think she’s been the most effective adversary. I think she’s done more to unite the Democratic party than either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.”
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump used Twitter to fire almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.
Warren has dared to do what no other Democrat—or Republican—has: Attack Trump head-on, with the kind of blunt, insulting language he has lavished on his opponents.
Among the jabs she has thrown at him on Twitter:
- “But here’s the thing. You can beat a bully—not by tucking tail and running, but by holding your ground.”
- “You care so much about struggling American workers, @realDonaldTrump, that you want to abolish the federal minimum wage?”
- “@realDonaldTrump: Your policies are dangerous. Your words are reckless. Your record is embarrassing. And your free ride is over.”
Nor is Twitter her only weapon.
On March 31, Warren appeared on The Late Show, with Stephen Colbert. Her take on the egotistical billionaire:
“Donald Trump is looking out for exactly one guy, and that guy’s name is Donald Trump. He smells that there’s change in the air and what he wants to do is make sure that that change works really, really well for Donald Trump.
“The truth is, he inherited a fortune from his father, he kept it going by cheating and defrauding people, and then he takes his creditors through Chapter 11.”
When Colbert said that Trump had never broken the law, Warren replied that he had never broken the law “and been caught.”
For David Brooks, Warren’s tactics prove a depressing, lose/lose situation:
“And so the tactics…is either you do what Elizabeth Warren has done, like full-bore negativity, that kind of [get] under the skin, or try to ridicule him and use humor. Humor is not Hillary Clinton’s strongest point.”
As a whole, Democrats have shown themselves indifferent to or ignorant of the power of effective language.
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BULLIES AND COWARDS: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 30, 2017 at 12:03 amAs a whole, Democrats have shown themselves indifferent to or ignorant of the power of effective language.
Many of them—such as former President Barack Obama—believe: “I’m not going to get into the gutter like my opponents.”
Thus, they take the “high ground” while their sworn Republican enemies undermine them via “smear and fear” tactics.
In the early 1950s, slander-hurling Wisconsin U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy demonstrated the effectiveness of such tactics. Wrote Pulitzer-Prize winning author David Halberstam, in his monumental study of the origins of the Vietnam War, The Best and the Brightest:
“But if they did not actually stick, and they did not, [McCarthy’s] charges had an equally damaging effect: They poisoned. Where there was smoke, there must be fire. He wouldn’t be saying these things [voters reasoned] unless there was something to it.”
Joseph McCarthy
Tyrants are conspicuously vulnerable to ridicule. Yet, just as Democrats proved unwilling to use this powerful weapon against McCarthy, they have failed to do so against Donald Trump.
For example: Trump has often expressed admiration for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
But not a single Democrat has dared nickname him “TrumPutin,” “Red Donald,” “Putin’s Poodle” or “Wannabe Czar.” Similarly, his vice president, Mike Pence, could be labeled “Vice Putin.”
Trump has repeatedly assaulted the press, judiciary and Intelligence agencies. Yet no Democrat has damned him as having a Fascistic agenda.
Nor, as a whole, has the press dared to respond in kind to his increasingly vicious attacks on the First Amendment.
Trump has labeled established news media as “fake news.” He has called reporters “the enemy of America.” He has tweeted images of a “Trump train” running over a CNN reporter and of himself beating up someone covered by a CNN logo.
His target of choice is CNN, which has been particularly effective in uncovering the truth behind his almost daily lies. On at least one occasion, he told a CNN reporter: “You’re fake news.”
Yet no reporter—for CNN or any other news outlet—has called him a “fake President.”
CNN has started running an ad featuring a shiny red apple, while a voice-over intones:
“This is an apple. Some people might try to tell you that it’s a banana. They might scream banana, banana, banana over and over and over again. They might put BANANA in all caps. You might even start to believe that this is a banana. But it’s not. This is an apple.”
Unfortunately, many viewers might mistake the “apple” for Apple. Many Americans fail to grasp the subtleties of symbolic imagery. Thus, a more effective ad could feature a picture of Trump in an SS uniform, complete with swastika, and the following message:
“This is a Fascist. Some people might try to tell you that he’s a democrat. They might scream democrat, democrat, democrat over and over and over again. They might put DEMOCRAT in all caps. You might even start to believe that he is a democrat. But he’s not. This is a Fascist.”
Nor, in this YouTube-obsessed age, have Democrats assailed Trump with a ridiculing music video. In the hands of a creative writer, for example, the classic rock-and-roll song, “Rockin’ Robin,” could become a Democratic party anthem:
TRUMPY TRAITOR
(To be sung to the tune, “Rockin’ Robin”)
He Tweets in the White House all the day long
Screamin’ and a-schemin’ and a-doin’ what’s wrong.
All the Special Agents in the FBI
Hope he goes to prison to the day he’ll die.
Trumpy Traitor (tweet tweet)
Trumpy Traitor (tweet tweet)
Go Trumpy Traitor
‘Cause they’re gonna bust your ass tonight.
Every act of treason, every act of crime—
America has never seen a bigger slime.
Bob Mueller’s ready, the cops are closin’ in
To put a grand finale to your reign of sin.
Trumpy Traitor (tweet tweet)
Trumpy Traitor (tweet tweet)
Go Trumpy Traitor
‘Cause they’re gonna bust your ass tonight.
Eric’s getting ready for his next big steal
While Daddy hugs Ivanka—who lets out a squeal.
Don Junior’s got the Russians coming once again—
It’s party-time for traitors and their lives of sin.
He Tweets in the White House all the day long
Screamin’ and a-schemin’ and a-doin’ what’s wrong.
Handing out secrets to the KGB
The biggest Right-wing traitor that you’ll ever see.
Trumpy Traitor (tweet tweet)
Trumpy Traitor (tweet tweet)
Go Trumpy Traitor
‘Cause they’re gonna bust your ass tonight.
Well, Eric’s getting ready for his next big steal
While Daddy hugs Ivanka—who lets out a squeal.
Don Junior’s got the Russians coming once again—
It’s party-time for traitors and their lives of sin.
He Tweets in the White House all the day long
Screamin’ and a-schemin’ and a-doin’ what’s wrong.
Handing out secrets to the KGB
The biggest Right-wing traitor that you’ll ever see.
Trumpy Traitor (tweet tweet)
Trumpy Traitor (tweet tweet)
Go Trumpy Traitor
‘Cause they’re gonna bust your ass tonight.
Democrats and the media are fighting an openly Fascistic administration with tactics of a Shirley Temple. So long as they do so, they will continue to decline in influence.
Their only hope lies in combating the Heinz Guderians of the Republican Party with the all-out tactics of a George S. Patton.
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