An Uncivil President Suddenly Cares about Civility

I try to chronicle the Trump administration daily. It’s a depressing task; but here’s the latest entry.

6/27/18: After only seventeen months in office, President Trump has finally discovered a human rights issue he cares about.

You are probably asking yourself, “Well, what issue would that be? Does the dimwit in the Oval Office admit it was cruel to tear young children away from parents at the border?”

No.  

Stephen Miller, one of his favorite aides, still prowls the the White House halls. Miller is the evil genius behind that policy. And when it comes to putting toddlers in prison, Miller has always been all in. In March, he told The New York Times it was easy to implement such cruelty. “It was a simple decision by the administration [emphasis added] to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period.”

“Aha!” you are thinking. “Then it must be that the Trump administration is going to stand up for victims of repressive regimes around the world. This is what America—in its finer moments—is all about!”

No!

Trump still loves Vladimir Putin, the man who launched an attack on neighboring Ukraine. (Estimated dead, as a result: 10,000.) He still loves Putin more that Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada. Trump doesn’t mind if Putin interferes in democratic elections. But he believes Trudeau’s a bad dude. His government puts tariffs on American dairy products. That rat!

Guess again.

“Okay,” you think. “Trump must realize he should have been tougher on Kim Jong-un, when it came to human rights!” 

The president must have spent time studying the horrors perpetrated by Kim’s regime. He must realize he has to do more to help the 120,000 political prisoners currently held in the North Korea gulag. He thought about everything he had said. He said Kim had a “great personality,” he was “funny,” and he “loves his people.” 

Trump must be ready to admit he sounded like a fool.

Um...no.

This is hard. You guess again. Trump realizes that those who protest in this country deserve respect. Perhaps he has decided NFL players can kneel—because they have made it clear they are protesting police abuse. No. 

Okay, maybe Trump is going to admit reporters who criticize him have First Amendment rights? And all true Americans should defend those rights! Ha. 

And he swears he’s not going to call for reporters who criticize him to be fired anymore! Ha, ha. No.

Finally, you smack your head! Of course! Trump must realize he needs to protect the 800,000 young men and women previously covered under President Obama’s DACA order. Hundreds of them serve in the U.S. military. Thousands are teaching or working as nurses. Tens of thousands attend college. These hundreds of thousands of good young people weren’t born here. But they were brought here by parents when they were too young to have a say. They have grown up here. These “Dreamers,” as many of us call them, are as American in outlook as your children or mine....

No. No. And NO.

In reality, the Trump administration had its “lunch counter” moment last week when the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, kicked Sarah Huckabee Sanders to the curb. She and her family did enjoy a free cheese plate before the owner bounced them out. With that, the president finally took a stand. If Stephanie Wilkinson, the restaurant owner, wanted to protest the policies of the Trump administration, suddenly Donald J. Trump realized he had to stand up and be counted for humanity. The cause of civil rights would have a mighty champion in the White House at last.

That a man like Trump would suddenly care about the rights of anyone beside himself was bizarre enough. But the howls of pain coming from the right, calling for “a return to civility,” were hard to take.

Those on the right were horrified because Sanders had been accosted at her meal. They were aghast because protesters had shouted Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen out of a Mexican restaurant too. They were shocked when Rep. Maxine Waters called for foes of the administration to gather round cabinet members in public places and make clear they were unwelcome on many American streets. 

I’m not a fan of Congresswoman Waters’ position myself. But “civility” was now in order, we were told, that call coming from Donald J. Trump, the most uncivil American politician in the last fifty years.

Trump fans come out to protest at the Red Hen and support human rights.
Ha, ha. No!

Bluntly put, the president is a repulsive human being. The most cursory study of his Twitter feed reveals how regularly he employs uncivil language to attack those who anger him in any way. Hiding behind the seal of the President of the United States, he fails to make good use of the bully pulpit. He’s a bully instead. Like all good haters in politics and in life, Trump is a master of dehumanization. Sometimes he vilifies groups. Immigrants, in his telling, are always criminals of some type, “murders” and “rapists,” or members of MS-13. They want to “invade” our country. They “infest” our land. These aren’t human beings. These are bugs, worthy of being stepped on, crushed or shot.

Trump also dehumanizes individuals and, like most bullies, Trump is a coward who loves to punch down. He has the vast power of the government behind him and enjoys striking those who are not in position to strike back as hard. In his warped view, his foes never disagree on principle or with good intent. Sen. John Tester of Montana is not just “dishonest.” He’s “sick.” Peter Strozk, the F.B.I. agent so much in the news, is a “sick loser.” Former F.B.I. Director James Comey is “very sick.” The Fake News people have a “sick” agenda. President Obama was a “Bad (or sick) guy” when he tapped the phones at Trump Tower.

That despite the fact no evidence of tapping was ever found.

Crude insults pollute Trump’s dialogue and stain his Twitter feed almost every day. Mary Kissel, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal is “a major loser.” Mort Zuckerman, owner of the New York Daily News, is “little Morty,” and a “loser,” too. Sometimes, Trump employs an even more demeaning descriptor, “Liddle,” as in “Liddle Bob Corker,” a Republican senator and frequent critic Trump. He called a Miss Universe contestant who gained fifteen pounds a “pig.” Reporters who don’t fawn over him are subject to attack. You have “really dumb” Cheri Jacobs and Don Lemon, “the dumbest man on television.” S. E. Cupp is “one of the dumber pundits on TV. Hard to watch, no talent.” In one tweet, Trump nailed two critics at once, “Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika.”

He clearly can’t spell Mika’s last name—Brzezinski—and he’s too slothful intellectually to look it up.

In a classic case of projection, liars abound in Trump’s world. During the 2016 campaign you had Lyin’ Ted and Lyin’ Hillary, of course. But the club is large and growing every week. It now includes: “Little Adam Schiff,” the Democratic Congressman, Sen. Mark Warner, James Clapper, former head of National Intelligence, John Brennan, former C.I.A. Director, and former F.B.I. Director James Comey. All, according to Donald J. Trump, are liars of the worst stripe. Trump also issues blanket attacks on the liars he imagines he sees. The “Media are liars,” he claims. The Obama administration was a “Gang of Liars.” When Brennan blasts Trump in a series of interviews, Trump quotes a guest on Fox & Friends: “John Brennan, no single figure in American history has done more to discredit the intelligence community than this liar. Not only is he a liar, he’s a liar about being a liar.”

The more you examine Trump’s uncivil attacks, the more you realize how dangerous they are. When this bully is angry—and he’s angry a lot—he employs the worst sort of language to dehumanize foes. 

Trump isn’t just uncivil. If you care to sniff, there’s a whiff of Hitler in what he tweets and what he says. For that reason, the reporter, Mary Kissel, gets hammered again when Trump retweets a supporter. That supporter refers to Kissel as that “POS WSJ LIAR FANTASY PUNDIT.” Think about that: Kissel isn’t a reporter doing her job. The President of the United States isn’t a champion of First Amendment rights or a free press. 

He’s calling a critic a piece of shit.

The worst dictators in history all understood this drill. Reporters for Politico, Trump insists, are “pure scum.” Journalists who criticize him in general are “basic scum” and “enemies of the American people.” Rick Tyler, a Republican strategist who opposes the president, is a “sleazeball.” Jonathan Gruber is a “sleazebag.” McKay Coppin, another conservative thinker, is a “scumbag.” In fact, Trump’s call for civility doesn’t last through the week. During a campaign rally Monday in South Carolina he refers to Stephen Colbert, a late night comedian, as a “lowlife.”

You can’t fully compare Trump or any other politician to Hitler until they actually turn on the gas. But Trump has the instincts. He’s a true hater, just as the German madman was. And when it comes to the accused in court, we see how low Trump will go. Trump never doubts that those accused are guilty and always demands the harshest punishment. In 2013 he reacted angrily to news reports of teens randomly attacking people on the streets: “The scum that gets high on badly hurting old ladies and others through knockout assaults wouldn’t feel that way with a gun at their head!”

Scum again. Not human beings with due process rights.

Scum.

In fact, when it comes to the accused, Trump carries dehumanization to a logical end. “Did you hear they caught those animals who killed that lawyer in the mall parking lot? That is great news!” he tweeted in 2013. Animals! Nazi leaders referred to Jews as “vermin,” and by dehumanizing them, helped make extermination thinkable. In 1942 the governor of Idaho called Japanese-Americans—all of them—“rats.” That kind of thinking allowed the U.S. government to get away with detaining 110,000 human beings, including 77,000 U.S. citizens, because their humanity had been lost.

Unfortunately, Trump is always ready to play to the demons of hate. Knowing many of his supporters were offended by the Black Lives Matter movement, Candidate Trump, and later President Trump made no effort to bridge any gaps He knew and still knows that more than a few members of his base have hoods and sheets and Confederate flags in closets at home. So Trump appeals to the worst that is in their hearts. “How come there are no protests in favor of the two young police officers gunned down in Mississippi by two deranged animals,” he asked during his campaign.

Then he called for the kind of “solution” that the Nazis favored when they made “The Final Solution” policy.

What did Candidate Trump demand? “DEATH PENALTY!” he shouted, in all capital letters, in a tweet.

The problem with calling the accused animals—the kind of language once favored by lynch mobs—is not just that it makes shockingly cruel behavior seem more acceptable. The second issue is that not all “criminals” are actually guilty. Trump fans may not remember, of may not care, but Citizen Trump famously called the Central Park Five “animals” back in 1989. As always, he demanded the death penalty in their case. It took years, but it turned out the five young men—who had already served parts of lengthy sentences in prison—were innocent all along. And that’s the danger we now face. A guy like Trump is more than happy to rant and rave until others grab a rope and place it around some “animal’s” neck.

The President of the United States is, in fact, a dangerous man.

Those who appeal to hate are the enemies of humanity.