Welcome to From Insults To Respect.

This week, I received a letter from a wonderful pal of mine, Mike Gilmartin, a retired English professor who dabbles in the fine art of poetry. His letter included his most recent effort, which he titled, “The Art Of Trumping The Deal.” To me, it powerfully expresses Mike’s emotion that comes with his disrespect for Donald Trump’s bullying behavior.

Mike views Trump as a bully, as he puts it, “Because a bully blusters and lies and then chickens out when truth is on the line.”

Mike, certainly, is not alone in viewing Trump as a bully. For example, in an article in the The Observer, Arlie Hochschild writes:

To bully someone is to seek to harm, intimidate or coerce another who’s perceived as vulnerable. As the National Center Against Bullying elaborates, there are many types of bullying. Reviewing them, we… can recall times when Trump has exemplified nearly all of them. There is physical bullying – tripping, kicking, hitting; remember his calls in 2016 to oust Black Lives Matter demonstrators in the “old-fashioned way” (with a show of fist in palm). There is verbal bullying – name-calling (Sleepy Joe, Crooked Hillary, Little Mario). There is mockery by imitation. Recall his laughing imitation of a disabled reporter, palsied arms and hands shaking. Then there is social bullying – showing contempt for someone’s social reputation (think of the Gold Star parents, Khizr and Ghazala Khan, ridiculed for the silence of the grieving mother).

These Trump bullying behaviors, according to a Washington Post article, 

“has seeped into schools across America. Many bullies now target other children differently than they used to, with kids as young as 6 mimicking the president’s insults and the cruel way he delivers them.

“Trump’s words, those chanted by his followers at campaign rallies and even his last name have been wielded by students and school staff members to harass children more than 300 times since the start of 2016 [to the end of 2019], a Washington Post review of 28,000 news stories found. At least three-quarters of the attacks were directed at kids who are Hispanic, black or Muslim, according to the analysis.”

When I first read Mike’s poem, I liked its poetic expression of the emotional reactions of disrespect that is often experienced when we see someone acting like a bully. An image of giving the bully a good sock in the kisser, understandably, might come to mind, as well as images of other violent acts.

Because of this being a common reaction, I thought it would be worthwhile to share the poem with my readers to aid the uprooting of weeds in one’s mind regarding the nature of bullying. At the same time, I wouldn’t want readers to think that I am recommending that such thoughts should be the automatic proper way to actually respond to bullies. Such violent responses can lead to an assault charge and land one in prison. There are also various other very serious negative consequences when responding violently. A wise response requires considering who is doing the bullying, and the situation in which it occurs. In past posts, I discuss some specific ideas about this (see HERE, HERE, and HERE for a few examples). So, with these prefatory comments out of the way, let’s move on to take a look at Mike’s poem.

The Art Of Trumping The Deal

We were both born in New York City

Less than a year apart.

Thus ends the similarity.

My Dad, a WWII combat Marine

Taught me many things.

And he taught me this about bullies:

“Son, if it’s going down in the schoolyard,

Punch them in the mouth with all you’ve got

And they’ll run home crying for their mamas.

“If it’s going down when you’re young men,

Kick them in the nuts with all you got

And they’ll squeal like little girls.

“If it’s going down when you’re grown men,

Watch if their lips are moving and tell them you know they are lying

And they’ll turn red and orange in whimpering rage.

“If it’s going down when you’re old men,

Listen for their painful moaning at the urinal

Then piss on their shoes

And they’ll try to rub it off on the back of their pants leg.”

My Impressions

Dr. Jeff Rubin

The poem leads me to vividly sense the anger and hate many people experience when encountering bullies. Although the body of the poem applies to bullies in general, the title of the poem, “The Art Of Trumping The Deal,” points me in the direction of considering Trump’s particular style of bullying.

Trump’s style has him not actually physically attacking the person he is seeking to bully, but rather, to incite others to do the attacking for him. Thus we hear of numerous articles indicating an increase in violence toward the very individuals Trump verbally attacks in his speeches.

And then we have the incident in which Trump summoned like-minded bullies to come to D.C. on January 6, his incendiary rhetoric provoking a violent attack on the nation’s capital, leaving those who actually carried out the violence to suffer the consequences. Hundreds lost their jobs, others had to bear the cost and time of acquiring lawyers to defend themselves against criminal charges, many of them paying large fines, and some are serving time in prison. Meanwhile, Trump is bathing in the sun at his Mar-a-Lago country club.

But, somehow, I kinda think that all is not so perfectly rosy in Trump’s mind these days. It is just possible that images of two criminal investigations–one in Georgia and one at the federal level–are provoking anxiety at the thought that at any minute he may be placed in handcuffs and escorted to prison.

Well, that’s my post for today. I’ve written it with the hope that it might encourage any of you who might be tempted to try to achieve some goal by bullying your way through various obstacles to pause and consider the value of employing less anger and hate promoting alternatives.

bullyingconflict resolutionDonald Trump