Today, Donald Trump was sworn into office as president of the United States. I was amazed at how his inaugural address was so completely the voice of the bully. “Protection will lead to greater prosperity and strength,” he said.
Later on he said, “At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other. When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.”
A bully wants nothing more than complete, unwavering loyalty. As Greg Sargent wrote in the Washington Post, “The implied subtext here is that if racial or ethnic prejudice continues to exist it Trump’s America, it will be due to the failure of its victims to be sufficiently zealous in their total devotion to country.”
This has made me reflect on something Trump said Thursday: “One thing we’ve learned we have by far the highest IQ of any Cabinet ever assembled.” Setting aside the fact that no one has administered an IQ test to previous Cabinets so we have no metric by which to measure, this may or may not be true. However, one thing is for sure—this president and his team seem to be sadly lacking in EQ. Like most bullies his emotional intelligence continues to be sadly lacking.
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