Donald Trump accused journalist Abby Phillip of asking, “stupid questions” then inferred that PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor was a racist for the questions she asked. He followed that by calling renowned correspondent April Ryan a “loser.” In the midst of his floor spinning tantrums, he pulled the press pass of White House reporter Jim Acosta and demanded “decorum.” I think one of the presents the esteemed Mr. Trump should receive for Christmas is a dictionary because obviously, he has misread his thesaurus (who am I kidding he owns neither one). The man who “knows words” needs to learn that decorum and deference have different meanings but what they have in common is respect.
I am giving credit to political activist Karine Jean-Pierre for first pointing out that Trump does not want decorum he wants ‘deference.’ In the middle of the scripted outrage and camera grabbing attention hogs of political talk shows, Ms. Jean-Pierre blurted out her analysis of Trump’s new catchword…decorum, during an appearance on MSNBC’s Deadline: White House with Nicolle Wallace. When she said it, I had not thought about it in any depth because like your mother said, his [Trump] lies now, “go in one ear and out the other.” I reflected and remembered his pacing behind the lectern on stage, lips gnarled and jaw rigid as CNN reporter Jim Acosta relentlessly demanded answers from the man who is supposed to provide them. Mr. Trump hated being reminded of the inner child he never outgrew.
I remembered pacing like that when I was a kid “…and untie your face” grandma would say, as she went on to tell me I could not go roller skating with my friends because my family could not afford to replace a torn pair of trousers that month. I could feel his seething anger and at the moment of his grievance filled moral outrage, he tore a virtual hole in his tailored pant leg and exposed his need for unearned respect as he summoned an underling to take the microphone from Acosta and later pulled his press credentials. Less than a week later Trump found himself on the wrong end of a court case and Mr. Acosta was back on the job. So. Mr. Trump consulted his ‘best words Trump-tionary’ and brought the word decorum back to celebrity. Mr. President, we all know Lincoln was a Republican, and Healthcare legislation is complicated and the word decorum is not new. Only someone devoid of intellectual prying, like you, is intrigued by your new word toy.
One of the lessons we learned as children are that real respect is earned not demanded. Donald Trump has a skewed view that creates enemies of people of color and he doubles down on the disrespect when it is women. I suppose in some effort to command the control he cannot earn, he attempts to belittle you into submission. His flare ups, the conversation interrupting, ex—excuse me, the pointing finger, his spewing of imagined facts and dismissive hand wave, only shows his cowardice under pressure, his lack of knowledge and his envy of those whom he sees as his intellectual superiors. Of course, all of these are suppositions on my part but remember in one of the campaign speeches he said of his supporters, “I love the poorly educated!”
Vote in 2020 for Change.