Indecency

This piece is part of Yellow Scene Magazine’s Opinion section. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent a reported news position. At Yellow Scene, opinion pieces speak freely, challenge assumptions, and say the quiet parts out loud.

“I don’t know, because I am the least racist person you will ever meet.”

This whopper was Donald Trump’s response to Wolf Blitzer’s query as to why white supremacists were drawn to him.

Trump would not be the least racist person at a KKK rally.

Two recent cases in point were particularly striking, although singling out any particular racist utterances is a bit silly.

In a broad salvo, Trump called Somalia and all Somalians “garbage,” especially noting the Minnesota Congressperson Ilhan Omar. He showed the breadth of his good taste by calling Minnesota Governor Tim Walz “seriously retarded.”

As reported in the New York Times: “We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” Mr. Trump said. “She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren’t people who work. These aren’t people who say, ‘Let’s go, come on, let’s make this place great.’”

It’s worth noting that VP Vance pounded the table with undisguised glee as his boss spewed verbal sewage.

Omar responded, “His obsession with me is creepy. I hope he gets the help he (Trump) desperately needs.” JD could use some help too.

In his first term, Trump bemoaned immigrants from “shithole countries,” Somalia among them. Humorist Andy Borowitz wrote a typically clever “news” release claiming that Somalians were no longer willing to emigrate to countries with “shithole presidents.”

More recently Trump called ABC reporter Rachel Scott “obnoxious” when she dared ask him a question about releasing the video of Caribbean murder. He had blithely agreed to release the video, then denied saying so, despite video evidence to the contrary. He also called her “a terrible reporter,” a phrase he seems to reserve for any reporter who asks questions in lieu of fawning praise.

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Omar and Scott are women of color, because he is the least racist person. It’s also a coincidence that they are women, because he loves women. I believe he is also the least misogynist person you will ever meet, although “misogynist” is beyond his vocabulary. Misogynists hate women and would never, ever, “grab ‘em by the pussy,” as is his frequent wont.

Please pause with me to consider that in my first 300 words I’ve typed “garbage,” “retarded,” “shithole” and “pussy,” all in the journalistic service of accurately quoting the President of the United States.

I could be somewhat juvenile and point out that each of these pejoratives might be examples of rhetorical projection. But I won’t.

What with the mountains of lies, the litany of illegalities, the too-ridiculous-to-parody narcissism and just terrible decorating taste, there is just so much overload. Any reasonably dispassionate observer could cite several instances a week that would have sunk any other presidency. He has been called “Teflon Don,” because so much doesn’t stick. But it’s more like throwing spaghetti at a wall and finding it doesn’t stick because the wall is already covered with spaghetti.

But put all of that aside.

The most succinct descriptor of our president is “indecent.” The man is manifestly, malignantly, magnificently, majestically “indecent.”

His indecency is without equal. With all the self-claimed superlatives and the nauseating sycophancy of his supplicants, here is an area in which he is indeed peerless. He needn’t cheat, take surreptitious mulligans or pay millions of dollars to get phony prizes and honoraria.

He may not be the cruelest or least competent leader in human history (or may be), but his indecency stands alone, even in the company of the world’s greatest despots.

In a Senate hearing in 1954, U.S. Army chief counsel Joseph N. Welch responded to Senator Joseph McCarthy after McCarthy insulted a young lawyer in Welch’s firm:

”Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. … Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

Trump makes McCarthy look like Emily Post.