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With Trump’s peerless history of lies, convicted sexual assault, impeachments, war mongering, racism, mocking the disabled, galactic self-absorption and self-aggrandisement, wrecking the American economy, shredding public health and environmental protections, separating refugee children from their families, enabling the Netanyahu genocide of Palestinians and you-name-it, he has given his billions of critics around the world an unending arsenal of material to hopefully hasten his exit from all our lives.
There’s been a growing conga line of essayists setting out the case for him being the worst ever American president and the most odious and dangerous man in the world. He deserves these and many more such epithets.
But there is also a lot of truly despicable cruel ridicule thrown at Trump.
Orange and balding
Like millions of people all around the world, Trump is considerably overweight and never appears in public without being caked in his fake tanning lotion, attracting names like the Mango Mussolini and the Tangerine Toddler. This has caused a tsunami of ridicule, that I admit to impulsively sharing during his first term. His fake tanning puts arc lights on his inexhaustible vanity, but in that he’s hardly Robinson Crusoe in a world of botox, cosmetic surgery, hair colouring and all the other ways people ameliorate their insecurities.
Trump’s unruly comb-over is often the butt of ridicule. Being entirely comfortable with my own follicular-challenged pate, I’ve little sympathy with elaborate and obvious efforts to disguise hair loss. So personally, I don’t supress laughter when I see Trump’s coiffure in a mess. He may well have done wonders for the hair loss industry, but for me it’s a case of fools and their money here. So I’ll happily laugh along.
Overweight
His weight is another matter. As I wrote about similar ridicule of the portly ex-Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison when he was seen in swim trunks on the beach “Body shaming is often a toxic combination of fat shaming and unadulterated ageism … The message being sent to Morrison is a message that is also received by everyone with an older and less than perfect body: stay out of public sight. We find you repulsive. We shouldn’t have to look at you. You should understand how bad you look and keep your awful body covered up.
These messages can have serious repercussions. A large majority of the population don’t measure up to this standard with its neo-eugenic sub-texts: the old and anyone falling outside some ideal body type cover millions of Australians. The net impact of this sort of shaming across the population for feelings of low self-worth, esteem and acceptance manifests itself every day in dieting, anxiety and depression.”
Dementia?
Trump’s endless succession of bizarre word salad speeches and remarks is increasingly drawing comments that he is showing signs of dementia. This is of course of immense relevance and public importance, raising critical questions about his fitness to govern and giving someone like this codes to the nuclear Armageddon button. But so often, new instances of his incoherence are mocked unmercifully, something not inconsequential to public attitudes toward dementia.
If Trump were to ridicule someone with dementia (and on his form it surely can only be time) we’d all double down on this latest low watermark of contemptibility. Yet it’s apparently all good fun if we openly smirk about Trump’s incoherence and gaffes. Let’s document and republish these, but let’s always be mindful of the impact of implying that those with dementia should be swept out of sight.
Incontinence
The most recent of all these taunts is the “diaper Don” guffawing at the possibility that he’s now incontinent. So funny? But what sort of person snickers at an older person buying nappies in the supermarket or makes an older friend self-conscious about their urine smell?
Much of the merciless ridicule is heavily gendered. Anyone publicly laughing at the hair loss or obesity of a female political leader would be rightly wear misogynistic blowback: here we go again, judging female leaders on their weight, looks, dress, fashion sense etc.
Every time these cruel taunts are amplified across social media, millions — particularly among the aged — must privately wince and feel that Trump provides open licence for widespread unleashing of the cruellest jibes that many probably feel others may apply to them too.
Thirty percent of Australians over 15 have some urinary incontinence with 1 in 50 have faecal incontinence. Their self-esteem can be wretched.
446,500 Australians live with dementia. One of them is a very dear friend who at just 70 loses his way in nearly every conversation. Just like Trump. Laughing at this would be unspeakably disgusting.
If anyone laughed at our aging parents or grandparents as they struggle with all the challenges of aging, we’d feel contempt. But we do it openly about Trump.
So are we sometimes being drawn in to the very same despicable ways of talking about disability that appal us with him? In 2016 Michelle Obama famously said “when they go low, we go high” during her speech at the Democratic National Convention. But among all the richly deserved criticism, insults and ridicule Trump attracts are barbs about his appearance that can never pass ethical standards of criticism.
Let’s never hold back with daily excoriations of Trump’s mendacity, character failings and the danger he poses to the world. This piece by Nate White is one of the best I’ve read. But let’s always be mindful of the collateral damage some forms of this can do to many vulnerable people.
Simon Chapman AO 