Dayton Daily News

Trump’s cheap shots show him to be a very weak man

- Clarence Page Clarence Page writes for the Chicago Tribune.

Why does President Donald Trump, who holds the world’s most powerful political office, waste his time, energy and insults belittling a quartet of firstyear congresswo­men?

On Sunday, the president unleashed his now-notorious tweetstorm on the four Democratic congresswo­men — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachuse­tts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan — known as the “squad” in Capitol Hill circles.

A lot of people say it’s because he’s a racist or a sexist or a misanthrop­e with daddy issues.

He may be all of those things, but I think the main reason is simpler than that.

It’s because he’s weak, very weak, and he knows it.His White House has no legislativ­e agenda. After the departure of Alexander Acosta as secretary of labor, Trump has more than a dozen high-level “acting” officials, leading in such areas as the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigratio­n and Customs Enforcemen­t. He’s no closer to abolishing Obamacare or building a wall on the Mexican border than he ever was, even though he has claimed falsely at rallies that the wall “already is being built.” It is not.

But he shows his weakness most vividly in his angry tough-guy act. We see it when he bullies the less powerful with empty threats to distract from his presidenti­al shortcomin­gs, trigger the liberals and give his support base a thrill.

Bullies, as his parents should have taught him long ago, are cowards inside. They don’t want to fight, they only crave the feeling, however groundless and deluded it may be, that they have won.

“So interestin­g to see ‘Progressiv­e’ Democrat Congresswo­men, who originally came from countries whose government­s are a complete and total catastroph­e, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functionin­g government at all), now loudly ... and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run.”

Yes, Mr. President, members of Congress are “telling” people how our government should be run. That’s why people elected them.

But it is not part of Trump’s job to declare, as he then typed in the same tweet, “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came .... ”?

Places from which they came? Right. Like Michigan, Minnesota, Massachuse­tts and New York. “Go back” where? Is he too lazy to bother with learning anything about the people whom he insults?

All four women are American citizens — born in the United States, except Omar who is a naturalize­d citizen, born in Somalia. But, to Trump, all Democratic women of color in Congress apparently look alike.

I hope our country’s president is not as deranged as he sounds.

Yes, many people agree with Trump, I am sure. Many of them are racists and sexists, although, as Trump said about Mexican immigrants, “some, I am sure, are good people.”

Yes, Trump appears to be sticking with his base-focused strategy to the end. Perhaps he is old, bold and craven enough to rely on duplicatin­g the narrowly focused divideand-conquer strategy that managed to win the Electoral College in 2016.

That’s not a very brave approach, but he is not a very brave man. He’s just weak.

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