I’m a public high school teacher. Donald Trump continues to make it difficult for me to do my job. The 45th president is a lot of things. He’s insensitive, insincere and insecure. A lot of us are, to varying degrees. That said, the biggest issue I have with my fellow Queens native is that he’s a bully.
I know about bullies. When I was an elementary school student in parochial school in New York City in the 1980s, I was bullied. When I got to high school, I made up my mind I wouldn’t be pushed around any longer, stood up for myself and wasn’t. Instead, I spent a brief period of time myself as a bully, relieved it wasn’t me on the receiving end.
I’m intimately familiar with the bullying handbook. Bullies belittle other people. Consider Trump’s penchant for coining nicknames for those he dislikes, from Tampon Tim Walz to Horse Face Stormy Daniels. Bullies target those they perceive as weaker than themselves. Trump has shown disrespect for the handicapped, from mimicking a Washington Post reporter with a congenital joint disorder in 2015, to recently denouncing Kamala Harris as “low-IQ” and “retarded.”
Bullies could care less about the established norms of civilized........