Donald Trump Knows Nothing About Sexual Harassment

At the risk of sounding exhaustive, Donald Trump’s statements on sexual harassment are clearly inane – he’s talking about a subject that he obviously knows nothing about. His suggestion that a woman should change her career (regardless of her actual ability to do so) in the face of harassment shows a fundamental lack of empathy and serious regard for an issue that should concern both women and men everywhere. In fact, protections should be in place that prevent a target of sexual harassment from having to switch jobs or careers at all – that’s the whole point. Additionally, Eric Trump’s later attempt to save face by implying that “strong women” don’t allow themselves to be harassed is thinly veiled victim-blaming – plus, his suggestion to go to Human Resources doesn’t take into account that, in many cases, HR can be part of the problem. Targets of sexual harassment in the workplace need to gather documented evidence of the issue so that they have substantive protections when filing a claim, with HR or legally. By continuing to stand with Roger Ailes, Donald Trump is showing how little regard he has for sexual harassment as a problem in and of itself – and how little regard he must have for working people everywhere. Maybe Ivanka is staying “mum” on this subject because she knows her family is wrong on this one, despite being at the center of this debacle. You can read more on this at The New York Times. 

Image: Donald Trump and his children in 2014. Image Credit: Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto Agency via NYT

Putting Yourself Before Your Country

People may disagree with Leonard Pitts Jr.’s assessment of Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan’s decisions regarding Donald Trump. However, I agree completely with him – those who endorse Trump are doing so out of self-interest or bitter partisanship rather than putting their country first. The comparison of Paul Ryan and Franz Von Papen, who was partially responsible for the rise of Hitler for his own political expedience, is completely fair. A few Republicans, like Mitt Romney for example, should be commended for standing up to Trump and the rest of their party for refusing to endorse a dangerous, racist and fundamentally flawed candidate. The GOP loses big time whether or not Trump wins or loses the election – they’ve exposed an immensely problematic underbelly to their values. America needs a party of common-sense conservatism if it wants to continue having a healthy two-party system. The way current Republicans are tepidly, almost shamefully, endorsing Trump is in and of itself shameful. You can read Pitts's piece at The Miami Herald.

Hate to Break It: The Media and Donald Trump

The sentiment of this scathing article, written by Jonah Goldberg, the senior editor of the National Review, is exactly correct. Time and again, we see pundits in broadcast news brush aside any suggestion that they are directly culpable for the rise of Donald Trump in the United States. It’s true of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, and it’s true of countless other shows as well – calling Trump racist, bigoted and ignorant may make you feel better, but if you’re giving him near-constant free news coverage, it’s a net win for Trump. By falling into the bully’s trap, many in the news media have contributed to Trump’s campaign, essentially handing him the election. The free publicity Trump has gotten is a huge reason he’s now the presumptive GOP nominee, and ultimately, history will judge those who failed in their job to question Trump, comment knowledgeably on his positions, and inform the public with viable information. For more on this, read Goldberg's article in the National Review.

The Need for a Media "Mea Culpa"

On American television, the last few days have seen an unprecedented amount of conversations concerning the television media’s role in Donald Trump’s rise in the 2016 presidential race. These conversations, held on panel television shows by the same talking heads who couldn’t get enough of Trump a week ago, sound like excuses. This “mea culpa” from Nicolas Kristof of The New York Times is a good first step towards diagnosing how the media aided Trump’s ascendancy. However, as I’ve written before, it may be too late for the television news media to start standing up to Trump. He’s already captured the imaginations of a huge population of Americans. We can all hope that he won’t be the Republican Presidential nominee, but beginning to question him now may be too little too late. The news media should do all it can to rectify the damage it’s already done acting as “lapdogs” rather than “watchdogs,” as Kristof says. However, at this point, the purpose of the media acknowledging its role in Trump’s prominence should serve as a wake-up-call and a reminder to never allow financial concerns and audience building outweigh the duty of any news organization: to question, analyze, contextualize and inform. Read the full article at The New York Times.

Photo credit: Andrew Spear for NYT

Trump's Propaganda Machine

According to the New York Times, Donald Trump has received almost $2 billion in free media coverage. That’s more than all of the candidates, Republican and Democrat, combined. What the cable media has not sufficiently done is challenge him on his lies, threats, vulgarities, hate mongering, promises and his inability to provide substance on almost every element of what voters need to know to evaluate his intellectual and practical capability to be President of the United States of America. This begs the question – why??  Has the media, like Chris Christie and Ben Carson, been bought by Trump? As an aside I happened to see Christie at Trump’s future Winter White House, Mar-a-Lago, literally feeding at the trough.

Melissa Jelsten of the Huffington Post wrote an excellent piece last week called “Donald Trump is Successfully Conning the Entire Country,” that calls Trump out. All of the journalists covering Trump should study this and start practicing their profession as investigators and critical analyzers, rather than viewing Trump coverage as entertainment.

Regardless of what we may think of Mitt Romney, he got it right when he predicted how Trump would react to his comments. More importantly, he challenged Trump to prove him wrong by disclosing his income tax forms and comments to the New York Times editorial board. Rather than take up Romney’s challenge, Trump, with cable media playing along, predictably trashed Romney in the same dismissive tone and fashion that he always uses against anyone who opposes him.

Unless our television broadcasters provide more balanced coverage, expose his lies and inconsistencies and force more transparency from Trump, he will have a great advantage come November. Even his advisors, who are relatively unknown, untested and dubious, have been severely underreported on. Additionally, Trump’s ongoing “torture first and ask questions later” attitude towards terrorists, especially in the wake of these horrific bombings in Brussels, has been only weakly challenged by the media, and out and out echoed by his top opponent, Ted Cruz. Trump’s temperament and mental state should also be called into question, but since the media has already spent $2 billion on non-informational Trump coverage, I don’t expect any substantive progress on that front either.

Unfortunately, whatever the cable news does to provide more sensible perspectives and coverage may be too little too late. Huge damage has already been done by unleashing an immense level of bigotry, hate and intolerance, in much the same way Hitler fueled it in Germany in the early thirties and McCarthy did in the United States in the early fifties. The media must take much of the responsibility for this because they have become, for all intents and purposes, Trump's propaganda machine.

As a Canadian and seasonal resident in Florida, I am starting to feel unwelcome in the United States due to this huge shift in values. His continual alienation of the Muslim community is not only blatantly offensive, but logistically risky, as they should be the US’s natural first line of defense against terrorism motivated by radical Islam. Additionally, there’s my alliance with the other groups who are threatened by Trump’s reign: the eleven million undocumented immigrants in America, supporters of free speech, the innocent children and spouses of those who may be targeted as terrorists, and in the future, those who dare become witnesses, defenders and resistors of an authoritarian rule.

White Supremacists Were the Big Winners in Yesterday's Vote

Black Lives Matter protesters at a February 29, 2016 Trump rally, shortly before being escorted out of the venue.

For the GOP and the mainstream media, the elephant in the room is the white supremacist movement. The GOP leadership, Rubio, Cruz and the mainstream media should acknowledge this horrible reality. The reason there is a reluctance to confront this is the risk of alienating the extreme fundamentalist Christians who are at the core of this movement and view Trump as their savior.

For months, Trump’s outrageous hate-mongering comments run parallel to the white supremacist agenda, largely without real challenge. An example of this can be found in an article in the February 1 issue of The New Yorker called “The Duel” by Ryan Lizza, which analyzes what resonates with voters. The article reports: "Trump fans tend to express little regard for political norms. They cheer at his most outlandish statements. O'Reilly (Fox News) asked Trump if he meant it when he said that he would 'take out' the family members of terrorists. He (O'Reilly) didn't believe that Trump would 'put a hit on women and children' if he were elected. Trump replied 'I would do some pretty severe stuff.' The Mesa crowd erupted in applause 'Yea, Baby!' a man near me yelled. I had never previously been to a political event at which people cheered for the murder of women and children." Trump's comments and the barbaric responses of his racist followers is exactly what occurred in Germany in the early thirties.

This incident, and many others like it, where Trump's racist, hate-mongering comments and the racism of his supporters have been well documented; yet, the GOP establishment, the candidates and the mainstream media have been far too timid in challenging this. Trump and his racist supporters must be called out for who and what they are; if they are not, after November, Americans will likely be required to salute Trump by declaring "Sieg Heil", which I am sure many white supremacists did last night.

In my Monday blog post, "FALLING INTO THE BULLY'S TRAP - BULLYING IN REAL TIME ON PRIME TIME," I indicated that it is fortunate that Trump, unlike many bullies, is very transparent. There is no ambiguity on what he stands for and what he has the potential of doing. Even last night this transparency showed when he called himself “a unifier,” and went on to say of House Speaker Paul Ryan: “I'm sure I'm going to get along with him (Ryan), and if I don't, he's going to pay a big price.” This is a threat, and should be reacted to as such! This is also a reflection of what he will do to anyone who stands in his way.

If someone in the GOP were to, in very quick order, produce a documentary called "In Trump’s Own Words – How The Republicans Are Falling Into the Bully's Trap," it would more effectively expose Trump and white supremacists for who they are, and the huge damage they have the potential of doing.

My ninety-seven year old mother lived through the horrors of the Nazi regime in The Netherlands. She indicated her hope that Americans will not have to reflect, with regret, on the poem by Martin Niemoller:

“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Replace “communists” with "undocumented immigrants,” “trade unions” with “dissenters,” and “Jews” with “Muslims.” Niemoller's observations hold great potential for regretful reflection during a Trump presidency. 

Photo: Reuters, taken from The Daily Mail

Falling Into the Bully's Trap: Bullying in Real Time on Prime Time

As an expert in bullying, I am as astounded by how a bully has entrapped so many in such a short period of time. What is even more astounding is the lack of understanding and appreciation on how dangerous bullies are, and in this instance the potential of turning a democracy into a dictatorship.

Bullying is all about power and control. Bullies are calculating masters of deflection who deceive and manipulate to achieve their ends. Donald Trump, now partnering up with another renowned bully, Chris Christie, has and continues to bully his way to the most powerful position in the world. Christie's endorsement of Trump validates what Trump is leveraging: anger at, disdain for and distrust in the establishment candidates. Trump’s bluster and outrageous statements continue to resonate because he is perceived to tell it like it is. What is missing is an effective offence that convinces the populace that most of what he preaches is a blatant distortion of the facts, and how dangerous he is.

Until the Republican debate on Thursday night when Marco Rubio took on Donald Trump, the mainstream media and the other candidates allowed Trump to go unchecked. Predictably, Trump, using childish school yard bullying tactics, shifted his focus from Ted Cruz to Rubio. Rather than challenging political positions, tried to discredit him by ranting about things like Rubio sweating and drinking too much water, as though they were akin to treason. Unfortunately, Rubio, rather than being more substantive in challenging Trump on his bigotry, racial slurs, intolerance of dissenting viewpoints, inconsistencies, and inflammatory and extreme positions, fell into the bully's trap by taunting Trump on things that have nothing whatsoever to do with his character, capability, qualification or temperament to be the leader of the free world.

An opinion piece called 'Trump Agonistes' in the February 27 - 28, 2016 Wall Street Journal, provides a balanced perspective on how Trump’s competitors are trying to expose his weaknesses. More importantly and worrisome is how Trump is unable to tolerate any kind of criticism or dissent.

To illustrate this, consider a disturbing piece on the front page of last Saturday's New York Times called ‘To Fight Critics, Donald Trump Aims to Instill Fear in 140-Character Doses’ by Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman, reports how Cheri Jacobus, a Republican political strategist, was viciously and personally attacked by Trump, his campaign manager and Trumps followers: "For days they replied to his posts with demeaning, often sexually charged insults aimed at Ms. Jacobus, including several with altered, vulgar photographs of her face." This example is a classic case of how a bully retaliates and is why so few have been courageous enough to expose him. Yes he is feared because people do not want to endure his wrath and this is perfectly understandable. To date, his wrath has just been an articulation, what should be feared is what he could potentially do if he is elected.

Usually bullies are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Fortunately, Trump is more transparent in that what you see and hear is what you get. By being transparent, Trump is also predictable. This predictability offers the populous a view into what could happen if Trump becomes President.

Consider – his threat to sue the New York Times for trying to expose him. As President, will he dilute the first amendment?

Consider – his promise to deport eleven million undocumented immigrants. If he is unsuccessful, will he, as Hitler did, find a final solution?

Consider – his position on Muslims. Will we see a return of internment camps?

Consider – his intolerance of anyone who opposes him. Will we see a return of McCarthyism?

Consider – his high regard for Vladimir Putin. Will he become a Putin?

Consider – his refusal to denounce the endorsement of the KKK. Will they influence the government's agenda?

Consider – his position on free trade. If Canada and Mexico resist, will they be annexed?

Consider – his comment "I love the uneducated.” Will we see a U.S. version of Hitler's Brownshirt movement?

Consider – his obsession with winning. If four years from now, his power and control is at risk, will he abolish the next election?

As indicated at the outset, I am a bullying expert and I know what bullies are capable of and the horrors and damages they can inflict. I also believe in thinking in time. Pre-World War II, in Europe many fell into the bully’s trap. In the early 50's, many in the United States fell into the bully’s trap as well.

All that I can now do is implore Americans to think in time to prevent history from repeating itself.