Body-shaming Trump only drags us all into the gutter
It’s antibullying day on Wednesday.
That makes me think about U.S. President Donald Trump, but not in the way you’re expecting.
I’ve been disgusted by the way Trump has been bodyshamed by people who don’t like him.
Especially guilty are influential news media and entertainment personalities.
You know what I’m talking about. I’ve lost count of the times people, including celebrities, have used the word “Cheeto” to describe him, in reference to his tanned skin. There’s even a hashtag on Twitter called #NotMyCheeto.
Many of these people would never dream of making fun of the colour of a person’s skin if he or she were Mexican, African American or First Nations.
Graydon Carter, editor of the glossy magazine Vanity Fair, famously referred to Trump decades ago as a “short-fingered vulgarian.”
I don’t mind “vulgarian,” because Trump has proven his vulgarity over and over again. I do mind “short-fingered,” because that’s body-shaming.
It’s not OK in kindergarten, and it certainly shouldn’t be OK in Carter’s well-educated circles.
There’s more. The comedian Jon Stewart called Trump a “decomposing jack-o’-lantern,” and Stephen Colbert called him an “angry Creamsicle” in a routine last summer.
This week, Daniel Dale, who is the Toronto Star’s Washington correspondent, repeated a description of Trump’s hair as “decomposing pumpkin pie inhabited by vicious albino squirrels.”
Did you laugh? Do you think that’s adorably funny? I don’t. I think it’s just plain mean. It reminds me of elementary school in the bad old days, when teachers and parents believed that bullying was something you just had to suffer through.
I know a few things about body-shaming. I grew up in Surrey, England. When I was a kid, my school had not a single person of colour in it. No South Asians, no East Asians or black kids were anywhere to be seen. Lucky for them. Because of my Italian and Jewish heritage, I have olive skin that has a sallow tone, especially in the winter.
The pink-cheeked English roses with whom I was unlucky enough to share a classroom were very attuned to skin col-
our. They routinely made my life miserable by teasing that I must have been soaking in a urine bath for my skin to be so yellow.
Oh, but Trump does it to others, I can hear you saying. Hasn’t he fat-shamed many women? Didn’t he make fun of opponent Marco Rubio for being short? Didn’t he sneer at Carly Fiorina’s face, asking ,“Would anyone vote for that?”
Yes, he did. His behaviour in this regard has been despicable.
But two wrongs don’t make a right. Doing to Trump what he has done to others only drags us all into the gutter.
We’re entering a dangerous cultural war in North America. Trump is revealing profoundly disturbing authoritarian tendencies. He is appearing increasingly deranged in his behaviour.
But you will never get his supporters to turn away from him if you attack with coarse personal insults.
Want to take America back? Stick to the issues, like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Attack the argument, the record, but never the appearance of the individual.
Or else our cherished values of reasoned civil discourse will go right down the toilet.