Ralph Nader: Wrecking America And The Purpose Of Nicknames For Trump – OpEd
No matter what his advisers caution, Donald Trump cannot resist giving negative, insulting nicknames to his opponents and critics. Nor can the mass media resist reprinting them in CAPITAL LETTERS, without giving the named persons a right of reply. He gets a free ride day after day, month after month, year after year.
Trump and his pollsters think the nicknames stick in enough people’s minds to make this an effective rhetorical tactic. Trump’s favorites include “crooked Joe Biden,” or “Lying Ted Cruz,” or “Crazy Nancy Pelosi.”
The targeted politicians have chosen not to respond with their own nicknames for the mega-slanderer-in-chief, not wanting to lower themselves into his mud pile. Nor do they ask their allies to hurl similar invectives that would be compelling because they would be so accurate.
The old saying that you have to give a bully his own medicine is an “evergreen” because it works. Would theNew York Timescontinue to repeat Trump’s slurs if he immediately got slurred back in kind? Would the television networks keep conveying Trump’s insulting nicknames were he to become enmeshed by others mocking him and hurling insults with similar frequency?
Not likely. Pretty soon Trump would realize that his foul-mouth utterances are buying a torrent of nickname backlashes. He is, you may recall, notoriously sensitive to personal criticism. Thin-skinned, he is.
One episode illustrates what can happen with a tit-for-tat response. When Trump was president, he went to a Washington Nationals baseball game, and a crowd started chanting “Lock him up.” This was after he would exhort his mass rallies to chant “Lock her up” Interestingly, the crooked Hillary chants ceased during his following rallies. Trump got a dose of his own medicine.
Without such neutralizing reciprocity, Trump will intensify his personal epithets against Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz in the remaining weeks before the November 5thelection. Such a demeaning repetitive tactic is also an insult to most voters, who want candidates to focus on ways and means to improve their livelihoods, further their aspirations, and be more honest.
It is astonishing how lacking in introspection the mainstream media has been about being soused, so frequently by this failed gambling tsar who took them for such a ride in 2016. (See,NationalPopularVote.com).
Maybe some suggested nicknames will stimulate the media to stop playing his game, as it reports his regular contempt, just to get more ratings or readers. Think of our Founding Fathers and their wishes for elevated discourse.
Accurate nicknames Donald Trump will Dislike:
1. Dumb Donald
2. Convicted Crook Donald Trump
3. Lying Donald
4. Delusional Donald
5. Dangerous Donald
6. Disgusting Donald
7. Serial Law-breaker Donald
8. Deceiver Donald
9. Loser Donald
10. Trump-serial abuser of women
11. Lazy Donald
12. Violence Inciter Donald
13. Trump-obstructor of Justice
14. Dictator Donald
15. Dictator-lover Donald
16. Weak Donald
17. Dishonest Donald
18. Deadly Donald – Early Covid Denier
19. Fake Donald
20. Tax Escapee Donald
21. Unstable Donald
22. The Lyin’ King
23. Cheating Donald
24. Low IQ DONALD
25. Racist Trump
26. Know-Nothing Donald
27. Know It All Trump
28. Insecure Donald
29. Don the Con
30. The Incompetent Trump
31. Trump the Grifter
32. Betrayer Trump
33. Greedy Trump
34. Pardon Myself Donald
35. “I am the Law” says Lawless Donald
36. Corrupt Don
37. Ignorant Don
38. Bragging Trump
39. Trump Fantasy Land
40. Daily Lawbreaking Donald
41. Egomaniacal Donald
42. The Trump Dump
There is an important utility to such nicknames. They start reminding people of what Trump did to America in his four nightmarish years at the White House. The Democratic Party still has not reminded a voting bloc with short memories about Trump’s daily lies and sugarcoating of his record – from deadly early Covid denial to corruption and self-enrichment to promoting Wall Street over Main Street to Big Business runaway controls over Americans, to climate-violence-denial, to bashing the rights of consumers and workers, to giant tax cuts to the super-rich like him, to thumbing his nose at the Constitution and the rule of law, to obstruction of justice “as a way of life” in the White House, in the words of his former aide John Bolton.
Replaying that record is a must to dissolve the fantasies Trump weaves about his glorious four-year service.
The motivating, readable, relevant book for this critical voter education is “WRECKING AMERICA: How Trump’s Lawbreaking and Lies Betray All” (2020) – the mostusablebook on Trump’s nightmarish term in office. Mark Green and I also wrote this paperback for any return engagement. “Lest we forget.”