By David Perry–
The bully pulpit has never been bullier: nor the Senate, the House and now the Supreme Court.
That’s a lot of bull, ah bullying.
There are bullies in stores: witness the recent tale of a white lady berating two Spanish speakers for, well, speaking. There are bullies online—although I’m sure First Immigrant Melania’s “Be Best Ignore the Rest” campaign will put a stop to that any midterm now. There are bullies on the Left and bullies on the Right, but not so much in the middle, since breaking up a civil-less war generally requires something approaching balance in the Farce that has become our body blow of political debase, ah debate.
Bullying vs. Debate. That is the choice. Every day in this increasingly rank race to the dumpster that is our surreal reality we must choose: reaching out or raging on; punching down or standing up.
Everyone, it seems, is justifiably, mouth-sputteringly angry.
Admittedly, there is much at which to be teed-off. The pundits pout in constant commercially-framed generalities. The Right feels dismissed by the Left. The Left feels distasteful towards the Right. At some point, the Center must hold or just cry out: “Hold on!”
We can’t go on like this. For a while, one can ignore it. I did: two months of re-reading Winnie the Pooh (seriously), taking long walks, writing haikus and not signing onto Facebook or Twitter. Call it a social media enema. But, the wash was incomplete. I could only ignore the stink of what is happening in our country for so long. I’m not Rip Van Winkle and I’m hoping that neither are the voters who will soon be heading to the polls.
When Teddy Roosevelt coined the term “bully pulpit” for the power of the Presidency to attract attention, he didn’t anticipate it digressing into attention deficit disorder. But, so it has become. Trump is a bully. More to the point, he has used his bully pulpit to make such behavior acceptable.
Call it trickle down ugliness. I do not understand DJT’s base (and I’m pretty sure they don’t understand me, either). However, I look forward to a day when 45 (and certainly 46) isn’t so base. That, indeed, would be, as 26 might say, just bully.
I live in hope.
David Perry is the CEO and Founder of David Perry & Associates, Inc. ( https://www.davidperry.com/ ).
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