I was recently asked to reconsider my harsh treatment of President Donald Trump. I respect the source of the request, and I believe it was made with sincerity without malice.
I’ve been severe regarding Trump; but much of this, I believe, he brings on himself. He’s been elected to be the leader of the country, all the country, and that includes me. With that high office, he should be held accountable:
• To tell the truth.
• To work diligently at the country’s business.
• To oversee the military.
• To keep himself informed and engaged.
• To communicate to the American people in a straightforward fashion.
• To focus on the serious business at hand and not be easily distracted.
Yet this is not what I believe I see from him. I care about the country. I fear he is harming it.
President Trump is very fond of nicknames. Perhaps he’s trying to channel George W. Bush, though the two of them seem to be going through a rough patch at the moment. President George W. Bush also loved to nickname people — Stretch, The Big O, Brownie; President Bush was on it.
I remember as a schoolboy that nicknaming was a very popular activity. I think, in college too, it was quite widespread among the frat groups. Nicknaming someone, and having it stick, was cool. Especially if it was pejorative, like Stinky or Snaggletooth.
President Trump likes to nickname people, and it’s often a form of aggressive power display. Calling the president by a discourteous nickname is frowned upon. It’s probably foolhardy to hook up a president with scornful nickname – but let me give it a shot. While that sort of thing may well be beneath me, it’s certainly not beneath him, as he’s shown us time after time.
Does Trump deserve better treatment than being saddled with a disrespectful nickname? I wonder. If we could hear an off-record response from Crooked Hillary, or Lyin’ Ted, or Crazy Bernie, or Little Marco, or Liddle Jeff, or Low Energy Jeb – what might they say? Referring to the man with a negative nickname is beneath the dignity of the office, which I offend by calling the man President BoneSpur. Guilty as charged. How trashy of me. I thought of perhaps hanging a different nickname on him. How about President Lady Clairol for his blond locks? Or President Maybelline, for his in-artful use of makeup? Orange foundation? White eye makeup? On a man in his 70s?
I thought of one nickname bound to gather some notice. President PussyGrabber, referring to his predilection for sexual assault (criminal by his own description). Those are his words, not mine. Nonetheless, he received the Republican nomination, perhaps to their shame, and won the electoral college, and got a lot of votes of those Americans who bothered to vote; almost half.
President PussyGrabber would be demeaning to the man, of course, but isn’t that the whole idea behind a derogatory nickname? But I didn’t even bother running it by my wife, anticipating her response, which might be something like: “Don’t say that – he deserves it, but don’t.”
Of course, if I did employ the nickname President PussyGrabber, everyone would understand what I meant. That said, I think President BoneSpur still conveys Donald behaving in a sleazy way, but in a different sort of sleazy way. Remember the whole bone spur thing? One foot hurt so much he wasn’t fit for military service. Yet he was unable to remember which one.
Using President BoneSpur conveys disdain, and it does so without employing the crude term employed by Donald to refer to women’s genitalia. But I gotta admit, it’s hard to talk about this president without muddying oneself.
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