President
Trump’s first days in office were alarming for several reasons. He
immediately began attacking the press, while intentionally stating falsehoods
such as he would have won the popular vote, but for “3 to 5 million” fraudulent
votes…Since most of those falsehoods are easily debunked, such as the size of
the crowds at Friday’s Inauguration and Saturday women’s march.
This occurred in 2017. Will we see a repeat of Donald Trump’s last term?
It might be instructive to those 6 million Democratic voters that stayed home
this election cycle to remind them why the rampant corruption of his first term
and chaos at the border in 2017 when he attempted to deport 11 million
undocumented immigrants, separating babies from their mothers, was why he wasn’t
reelected for a second term.
It looks like a repeat performance as he is again nominating those most loyal
and most incompetent for some of his cabinet picks, such as Matt Gaetz for
Attorney General, Tulsi Gabbard for Department of National Intelligence, and
Robert Kennedy, Jr. for Health and Human Services.
And he will again use the same bullying tactics to attempt to get them
through the Senate without background checks or security clearances. How easily
Americans have forgotten that a man who has used bullying tactics his whole life
to get what he wants, has highlighted his own incompetence to be POTUS
again.
I have written about the bully
mentality in our culture before. In times of uncertainty as we have today,
it has led to increased bullying in schools, and even gun violence. It is a
mentality that attempts to impose a bully’s version of reality on the real world
for the sole purpose of domination. President Trump has always acted the bully,
which is the reason for his history of lawsuits and bankruptcies, so that facts
are only useful in so much as they support his needs.
Evidence of Trump’s bullying tactics also comes from his words on social
media. Groff Beattle, a professor of Psychology at Edge Hill University has
reported Trump uses the body language and mannerisms of a bully, such as the
exaggerated use of his hands.
Comments such as “mentally sick”, “dummy”, “looser” or “looked disgusting”
are all examples of bullying language Trump uses to attempt to normalize such
behavior. Trump’s bullying tactics include calling President Obama the founder
of a terrorist organization and insinuating that Clinton took drugs prior to a
debate. He also mocked the disability of reporter Serge Kovaleski, portrayed
immigrants and foreigners as dangerous people, rapists or “criminal aliens”, and
demonstrated a significant lack of respect for women or military veterans,
calling wounded veterans “losers”.
How does one oppose such destructive behavior? First, we should know that
bullies prey on those they can intimidate, and avoid confrontation with those
stronger because of their own insecurities. Trump preyed on naïve students and
the elderly in his Trump University scam. And he stiffed workers and employees
when building his Trump Casinos either by paying them less than was
contractually agreed to, or not at all.
Combine it with his narcissism that requires he be constantly in the
limelight. So, the news media should ignore his tantrums, rather than always
commenting on them. Remember that he makes such outrageous lies to gain even
more attention.
Psychology Today posted a list of bullying behavior, a list that fits
President Trump like a glove:
– Uncontrolled anger and unpredictable irritability, frequently directed at
the weakest people (‘safe targets’) or those perceived as a future threat
–
A sociopathic ability to control their own image – the selective ability to look
like a different person to different audiences – for example, being aggressive
to ‘subordinates’, while being charming and helpful to others
– Having
little status outside of work, bullies wield the power that their job gives them
with vicious zeal
– Running ‘witch-hunts’
– Gratuitous domineering
behaviour – sometimes physical
– The ability to make the unreasonable seem
reasonable, even to the victims
–Projecting their own inadequacies onto
others
– Making irrational accusations
– Publicly putting people down
– Sadistic enjoyment in humiliating others
The list of Trump’s bullying tactics is endless, and how to counter them are
well known. There is even a government website, https://www.stopbullying.gov/ to
help understand what the bully mentality is all about. How sad it is that this
U.S President-Elect, about to become the most powerful person on earth once
again, is setting such an example of his own weakness and insecurity.
How easily Americans have forgotten his most recent past and what it could
mean as he again seeks to limit freedoms and turn our Democracy into an
Autocracy.
Harlan Green © 2024
Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen
