In case you missed it, last Thursday, Nov. 13, was “World Kindness Day.” And, of course, as I write this, Thanksgiving is just over a week away, kicking off what is supposed to be a season of giving and appreciation and joy and love … You know, “the holiday season.”
Well, let’s all give a warm round of applause for our so-called president, Donald Trump, who so blatantly exemplifies the very antithesis of kindness and the true spirit of the holidays and who proved this — yet again — with a tantrum targeting a reporter on Air Force One last Friday, Nov. 14, who dared to ask him about — duh-duh-ddduuuuuhhhnnn! — the Epstein files.
Catherine Lucey, the White House correspondent for Bloomberg News, asked Trump, “Mr. President, what did Jeffrey Epstein mean in his emails when he said you ‘knew about the girls?’”
Trump answered by declaring he knows nothing about it before going on to try and smear Bill Clinton and Larry Summers with the Epstein stain and claiming he and Epstein had “a very bad relationship for many years.”
Trump then called on someone else for the next question, but Lucey — doing her actual job as an actual journalist — persisted: “If there’s nothing incriminating in the files …”
That’s when Trump’s “somewhat human” mask slipped and he responded true to his actual form, telling Lucey “Quiet. Quiet, piggy!”
Yeah. The president of the United States, in a press briefing aboard Air Force One, called the White House correspondent for Bloomberg news “piggy.” Let that sink in for a minute.
Have you grasped the concept of it yet?
Of course, no one who has been awake for more than 15 minutes at a time over the last 10 years is the least bit surprised that Trump would say something so rude and crass and misogynistic. (We also are not surprised that he would lie about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.) I mean, let’s take a quick look at his track record:
If any woman dares speak against him or just doesn’t fawn over him, he routinely calls them “fat pigs” or “dogs” or “slobs.” He called Stormy Daniels (the porn star he slept with while his wife was home with their newborn son) “horseface.” He called Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman.” He called Megyn Kelly (back when she had something resembling a spine and did not defend pedophiles) “a bimbo.” He referred to Omarosa Manigault Newson as “that dog” after she was fired from a White House position and released a tell-all book. He called the 1996 Miss Universe winner, Alicia Machado, “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping.”
And we can’t forget the infamous “grab ’em by the pussy” remark from that leaked Access Hollywood audio clip in which he admitted he “can’t help himself” and routinely sexually assaults women by touching and even kissing them without permission.
So yeah. Calling Catherine Lucey “piggy” and demanding that she shut up is certainly not out of character for Donald Trump. But that does not mean it is ok.
It is not ok for the president of the United States — or anyone else, for that matter — to speak to women — or men, either — in such a manner. It is not ok for the president to weaponize the power of that office to attack those who disagree with him, those who speak out against him or those who demand answers to important questions.
You know, questions like, “Is Donald Trump, already an adjudicated rapist, also a pedophile?” “Did Donald Trump pay Jeffrey Epstein money to procure children for Trump to rape?” “Is Donald Trump really as evil and slimey as he appears to be?”
Those are important questions to ask of any person of any gender, age, race or background who holds a position of power at any level in our government, in our society as a whole. And if the answer to any of those questions is “yes,” then that individual needs to be removed immediately from their position of power and incarcerated.
And yet, there are those who defend this behavior. No doubt someone out there has already suggested that perhaps if Catherine Lucey would just shut her mouth and not ask hard questions, then Trump wouldn’t be forced to call her names. There are those, like Megyn Kelly, who try to claim that it isn’t really being a pedophile if they are molesting teenage girls, because it’s not like they are raping 8-year-olds or something.
And I don’t doubt those are the same people out there losing their minds because transgender women want to be able to go to the bathroom without being assaulted or arrested. They are the same people showing up with torches and pitchforks because some drag queen dared read some Mother Goose tale to a child.
Yeah, they are all about protecting the woman and the children, unless it means actually protecting them from sexual assault or from being molested or from being gunned down in a classroom somewhere. They are all about “protecting women and children” as long as that means they get to attack LGBTQ+ people minding their own business. But when it comes to something that might inconvenience them in some way — you know, by requiring they not molest children or sexually assault adults at their whim — well, that’s just asking too much.
Trust me when I tell you I am by no means Miss Manners. I have been known to use a cuss word or two. I am sure that I would give Ann Landers and Dear Abby and Emily Post a severe case of hives. And to borrow from a meme I saw recently, I may seem laid back, but I can lean forward real damn quick when the situation demands it.
In other words, I am not perfect. None of us are. But there is a vast gulf between being “not perfect” and being a child-molesting, name-calling, evil slime monkey like … Well, you know who.
By the way, happy holidays.
Tammye Nash is managing editor of Dallas Voice. The views represented here are her own and do not necessarily reflect Dallas Voice policy.