Trump's War on Basic Human Decency
When I played Little League as a boy AND when I was the pitcher for the Onion softball team in the late 1990s we had a dispiriting ritual at the end of each game. Whether we won or lost, after the final out we would trudge over to the other team, give them high fives and enthuse “good game” before heading home or to the bar.
There was absolutely nothing organic about this gesture. We did not look the other team in the eyes. Instead we looked down, at the ground, and uttered the words “good game” in a joyless monotone devoid of even an ounce of sincerity.
We did not indulge in this sorry ritual because we wanted to: we did it for the sake of being polite.
I think about this curious tradition sometimes when I think about Donald Trump and his war on fake niceness. It’s exactly the kind of ritual that Trump would sneer derisively at. Instead of muttering “Good game” and indifferently slapping the hands of the opposing team he’d probably glare, mouth “fuck you” or “you cheated, you assholes” and, if he was feeling particularly spirited, maybe spit in the face of his opponents to really drive home how much he hates them for being on a different baseball or softball team.
I would say COVID-19 and heinous social inequities, but sure.
If Trump’s popularity is any indication, a lot of voters would find that incredibly liberating, even empowering. When, during the first Republican debate, Trump told moderator Megan Kelly, "I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct. I’ve been challenged by so many people and I don't, frankly, have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn't have time, either.” what he was really saying was that the big problem with our culture was not gun violence or racism or poverty or horrifying and inexcusable societal iniquities but rather that people pretend to be nice and civil and decent and polite to people they despise instead of being open about their vitriolic hatred.
Trump promised not to be one of these phonies. That is perhaps the only promise he has kept.
The former host of The Apprentice is so blunt and candid in spewing hatred that his fanbase sees this not just as honesty but conclusive proof that Trump is a brutally candid and truthful human being even if, by seemingly every criteria other than his own, he is perhaps the biggest, most unapologetic and shameless liar in the history of the American presidency, if not politics as a whole.
The one thing Trump is unrelentingly honest about is just how much he hates people. When the revered Civil Rights leader John Lewis died recently, for example, Trump was physically and psychologically incapable of saying anything nice about a man he considered an enemy.
Where someone like George W. Bush or Mitt Romney would undoubtedly praise Lewis’ commitment to social justice, or the central role he played in the Civil Rights movement, all that Trump could say about Lewis was that he did not attend his inauguration or State of the Union address and that was a big and, to Trump’s narcissism-poisoned mind, defining mistake.
That, to Trump, was the entirety of Lewis’ extraordinary life: he didn’t say nice things about me, or attend my big shindigs, so fuck that dead guy and screw all the people who revered him and mourn his death. Trump felt much the same way about John McCain, another revered American, this time in Trump’s own party, although he added the additional cruelty of publicly pondering whether McCain was in hell for not helping Trump repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Today Kamala Harris became the first women of color to have a good shot of getting elected Vice President. Any other president would have at least congratulated her on this distinction, if, for no other reason than to appeal to women and people of color. Not Trump. He immediately began attacking her in characteristically personal terms, deriding her as “the meanest” and “disrespectful” for her treatment of Brett Kavanaugh even though he and his daughter had both donated money to Harris’ campaign before he ran for president.
Trump’s war on fake niceness is ultimately a war on niceness itself. It’s a war on civility. It’s a war on basic human decency. It’s a war on the idea that if you can’t say anything nice about someone, don’t say anything at all. It’s a war on bipartisanship. It’s a war on politeness. It’s total war not just on the Democrats but on anybody in his own party who does not enthusiastically support him.
The only thing that Trump is capable of being honest about is how much he hates people. THAT is the only way in which he is authentic. If he says he hates somebody, which he does several times a day, you better believe he’s being real.
That’s not candor. That’s not honesty. That’s not truth-telling bluntness. That is, to use a word Trump himself is extraordinarily fond of, pure nastiness. Nearly four years into his presidency, Trump’s authentic hatred for his enemies and allies alike is not refreshing or empowering: it’s fucking exhausting. Trump’s war on feigned niceness has only made me realize just how fucking essential it is, both individually and as a culture. We NEED to be decent and civil and kind to each other even if we aren’t feeling overwhelmed with positive emotions because Trump has illustrated just how toxic and terrible it can be when the only thing you’re real about is how much you hate everyone you do not consider a supporter or friend.
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