Who is the biggest bully in America’s election?

Kurt Mahlburg
October 30, 2024 31 Reactions

If his critics are to be believed, Donald Trump is a Nazi, a fascist, a dictator, and a threat to America’s very survival.

Most Americans find these claims rather fantastical. But one label that has stuck is “bully”.

Is Trump a bully?

This was the question that television personality Phil McGraw — aka Dr Phil — put to the audience during his endorsement of Trump at Sunday’s Madison Square Gardens rally.

“I don’t like or agree with everything that Donald J. Trump does or says,” he began. “No human is perfect. We don’t strive for perfection; we strive for excellence.”

Dr Phil went on to explain that he wasn’t there to defend Trump — a man who needs no defence since he’s “tough as an old army boot”. He clarified:

I’m here to talk to and stand up for the people who have declared their support for Donald J. Trump, or they got found out, or they want to do it but they’re too intimidated.

Because you know what happens when somebody in this country says, hey, I’m going to vote Republican, I’m going to vote Donald J. Trump? They get canceled, intimidated, marginalised, excluded or even fired or boycotted. And you know what that means? In short, that adds up to being bullied.

And now we’re talking about something I know a hell of a lot about. Now you’re in my wheelhouse, buddy. I may not be an expert in politics, but I am an expert about bullying.

 

Liquid syntax error: Error in tag 'subpage' - No such page slug home-signup

Dr Phil elucidated that bullying inflicts harm, intimidation, coercion or distress, whether verbally, relationally or online — and here was his qualifier: by definition, bullying always involves a power imbalance.

Here is where he hit back at the idea that Trump is a bully:

Now, let me tell you what the critics are going to say when they hear me talking about this. They’re going to say, well, now wait a minute, come on. Isn’t Trump a bully? And let me tell you why the answer to that question is no. Because to be a bully, there has to be an imbalance of power. And when there’s not, it’s just called a debate. And he’s just better at it than anybody else. It’s called debating. It’s called arguing. It’s just — even name-calling. But it’s not bullying unless there’s an imbalance of power. And whoever he talks to, they’ve got a microphone, they’ve got on their big-boy pants, they’ve got a stage, they’ve got everything else. He’s just better at it.

Proving that he wasn’t just taking sides, Dr Phil conceded that the Democrats’ casting of Trump as Orange Hitler also does not constitute bullying. “It’s ugly,” he argued. “But with the First Amendment, which we all want to keep, there’s no imbalance of power, so it’s not bullying.”

The knock-down evidence generally offered for Trump’s bully status is his 2015 mockery of a disabled reporter. Trump later explained he had no idea the journalist whose article he had criticised had a disability.

Maybe Trump was telling the truth. Maybe not. But at worst, this belittling of someone for a weakness beyond their control does appear to be an isolated incident.

To be sure, there is no shortage of inglorious tweets and spiteful comments Trump has made throughout the years, as he has directed his ire at rival politicians, media personalities and other public figures. However, if we take Dr Phil’s definition of bullying, most of these fail to qualify Trump as a bully.

Opinions over Trump divide sharply, so perhaps you remain to be convinced.

But if you think Trump is a bully, consider a remark made just this week by the sitting president, Joe Biden.

Responding to an off-colour joke by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe that Puerto Rico is a “floating island of garbage”, on a recent campaign call, Biden said of Trump, whom Hinchcliffe supports, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his [Trump’s] supporters.”

Biden and his campaign have since walked back the remark, while the media has scrambled to help cover Biden’s tracks.

Don’t you doubt for a second that a days-long media firestorm would have erupted if Trump made such a claim about half the country.

It’s difficult to avoid the observation that America’s current Commander-in-Chief just called half of the people he supposedly represents “garbage”. And not just any half, but the half that tends to be poorer, more rural and less educated.

Maybe I have it wrong. Maybe Trump is a bully and he enjoys taking potshots at plebs.

But if he is, he’s not the only one — it’s just that he’s the only one the media cares to tell us about.  

Has bullying become part of political life nowadays?   

Kurt Mahlburg is a writer and author, and an emerging Australian voice on culture and the Christian faith. He has a passion for both the philosophical and the personal, drawing on his background as a graduate architect, a primary school teacher, a missionary, and a young adult pastor.

Image credit: Fox News screenshot 

 

 

 

Showing 31 reactions

Sign in with

Please check your e-mail for a link to activate your account.
  • David Page
    commented 2024-11-03 09:55:16 +1100
    Perhaps, Mrs Cracker, not all Trump supporters wear MAGA hats, but they are all delusional. Well, perhaps not all. Certainly the wealthy support him to enhance their wealth. But that carries right through all his supporters. Just replace “wealth” with “privilege”. They talk about rights. But “rights” apply across the board. If you only care about the rights of your particular grouping then what you are actullay talking about is “privilege”. I don’t expect a reply. You seem reticent to engage with me. Oh well.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-11-02 03:12:53 +1100
    Unfortunately the electoral college forces us to have this “winner take all” system for allocating electoral votes for (most) states, and makes is much harder for third party candidates to gain any headway in elections.
  • mrscracker
    Thank you for your election predictions Mr. Steven. I hope you are right.
    I don’t think folks outside the States understand that not everyone who votes for Donald Trump is delusional or goes about wearing MAGA hats.
    We only have two viable candidates to choose from. So we make the most pragmatic choice we can between the two.
    At the very least, the people I talk with are hoping for 4 years of peace & just being left alone. Whoever does the least amount of damage to the culture & keeps us out of foreign entanglements gets our votes.
  • mrscracker
    It’s concerning Mr. Young, but hopefully all shall be well. Wherever you may be in the world, politics will always involve money & power. It’s no different in the States.
    Even if Donald Trump seems an unlikely candidate to you we should remember that he has served before in the same office & we didn’t face an apocalypse back then. I don’t think we will in the next 4 years under a 2nd Trump admin. either.
    And JD Vance is a great VP candidate. I haven’t watched his interview with Joe Rogan but a friend sent me a link to check out this weekend. Perhaps you might want to look at it too? Pres. Trump will have JD Vance & Mike Johnson right behind him. Hopefully he will find a decent cabinet this time around & fewer backstabbers.
    Fingers crossed.
    :)
  • David Young
    commented 2024-11-02 00:57:32 +1100
    The USA seems to be on the edge of a cliff. How does the system allow two totally unsuitable candidates to be competing for the top job in the Western world? Is there something wrong with the system? Or is it that the people of today using the system haven’t the slightest concern of how to use it to the benefit of all of the people? Who is manipulating who? It is most surely about money. It always is. As an outsider to this comic opera unfolding I am befuddled and bemused. And as a grandfather to a grandson and a great grandfather to a great grandson living in New York I am deeply concerned for their future.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-11-01 21:11:30 +1100
    One more, to be sure, Kurt:
    “It’s not her, it’s the people that surround her. They’re scum. They are scum, and they want to take down our country. They are absolute garbage.”

    That’s a quote from Donald Trump. Now, why is Kamala being forced to answer for Biden, but Trump isn’t being forced to answer for Trump?
  • Tom Mullaly
    commented 2024-11-01 21:08:47 +1100
    Some interesting comments here folks. Steven Meyer makes some particularly insightful points. Many thanks to all.

    The current chaos in the US is a serious reflection on the state of democracy there, that requires much greater scrutiny than opinion pieces reacting to the latest ‘gaffe’ by X or Y. Democracy is being sacrificed on the altar of a consumer capitalism that is now out of control.

    In all honesty neither of these candidates deserves to be in the White House. Trump is a mafioso loose cannon, and his opponent, we all know, will do whatever she is told to do. Both will continue to give a carte blanche to the mass killing in the Holy Land as elsewhere. When it comes to US Republicans and Democrats, there are now miniscule real differences between them. Trump oversaw the end of Roe V Wade, which is a good thing as it returns laws on abortion to the states, but whether it has made any real impact on US abortion rates, or will do in practice, I have yet to see.

    The US is no longer a republic but an empire. The real power distracts the people through ever-louder shouting matches, in costly ‘elections’ that never really end. It’s a sad reflection of the judgement of the electorate – on both sides – that they keep falling for this. It is actual proposed policy not empty rhetoric that should be dividing people and offering people a real choice in a democracy. The obsession with rhetoric fills the void left by the absence of substantitve policy difference between either party. No fools like old fools.

    Heavy words, lightly thrown.
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-11-01 16:24:07 +1100
    Emberson Fedders

    If it waddles like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck.

    If it talks like a wannabe Mussolini….
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-11-01 15:13:43 +1100
    David Page

    Are you in fact already in the throes of a civil war, a civil cold war?
  • Emberson Fedders
    commented 2024-11-01 13:09:30 +1100
    Oh, Kurt, I can’t believe you missed this -

    “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

    Trump bullies the people he believes will vote against him with names like this all the time. Why doesn’t this worry you?

    And if you look carefully at what Trump did in his last term – trade wars that affected farmers, weakening protections for truckers by getting rid of rules pertaining to driving hours, weakening health protections for coal miners, scrapping plans to protect fast food workers from employee abuse – I genuinely do not understand why the poorer or less educated would vote for him.

    Sure, he ‘owns the libs’ and says whatever he wants, but by every metric he hurts most the people that vote for him.

    It fascinates me that many Democrats don’t necessarily vote for their own best interests but for those that are doing it tougher. Then those that ARE doing it tougher vote for an east-coast, New York billionaire who works hard to make THEIR lives worse.
  • David Page
    commented 2024-11-01 11:10:36 +1100
    Steven, if you are right then civil war is inevitable. I doubt that you are right. Especially down ballot.
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-11-01 10:34:09 +1100
    mrscracker,

    Regardless of the optics, Trump is taking you for a ride. Deep down I suspect you may know this.

    I think you can relax. Harris is a no-hoper. The Dems are hopeless. I said Harris would go down in the Electoral College but now I’m beginning to doubt she can even win the popular vote.
  • David Page
    commented 2024-10-31 22:04:22 +1100
    LBJ was a mixed bag. He did great things with civil rights and voting rights, even though he started his career as a segregationist. But he became obsessed with winning an unwinable war, one that ravaged my generation. I lost a good friend to Agent Orange less than a fortnight ago. Between Agent Orange and suicide I have lost many friends. Those Americans who died in country were a drop in the bucket compared to those who died because of that war. And you can add to that countless Vietnamese. And LBJ’s ill conceived anti poverty measures destroyed the nuclear black family.

    But Trump is a different animal altogether. He doesn’t posses one redeeming quality. He betrays everyone. The closer you are to him, the more likely you are to be betrayed. He is a true sociopath. I have some experience with the type.
  • mrscracker
    I’m so glad to hear you and your family are doing well Mr Steven. Praise the Lord for that good news. We’re doing fine here also.

    In our society we have the freedom to lecture those outside our status/ income level but I don’t think it’s a good look. And even when we may have the very best intentions.

    I listened to a Tom Holland history podcast about LBJ and then watched President Johnson’s last interview from 1973, 10 days before his death. It was very interesting and moving. I think you might enjoy watching that on YouTube also.
    You have a blessed day Mr. Steven.
    🙏
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-10-31 13:57:16 +1100
    mrscracker wrote:

    “Respectfully Mr. Steven do you not understand why working class people identify with Donald Trump & will vote for him?”

    Oh, I understand perfectly.

    The Dems used to be the party that stood up for the interests of the not-powerful against the powerful. They were able to do this because those never-to-be-sufficiently-damned trade unions could deliver working class votes.

    The collapse of those aforementioned never-to-be-sufficiently-damned trade unions left the Dems adrift. They were no longer able to win simply by standing up for the interests of the not-powerful so they went off into cloud cuckoo land.

    With no meaningful say in the political process, wages for the working class at best stagnated. Communities were destroyed. Upward social mobility mostly ceased. If your parents were poor you are unlikely to make it even to a modest middle-class.

    And, not only that, you can’t even take pride in being working-class anymore.

    Perhaps what is worst is the perpetual feeling of insecurity. To paraphrase Warren Bu8ffett, there is a class war and his class, the upper class, won.

    This opened the way for demagogues like Trump, clever at manipulating people’s emotions. He’s entertaining. Best of all he causes visible pain to the so-called “elite” whom working class people suspect, quite rightly, despise them. If we can’t get rich at least we’ll make them suffer.

    Except of course that the so-called “elite” are not suffering. They’re not the ones getting fat, overdosing themselves, dying young and committing suicide in increasing numbers.

    Lyndon Johnson once said:

    “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you”

    It’s not quite like that any more. There is and always will be some racism but it’s become more openly a class thing. To put LBJ’s statement in contemporary terms:

    ‘If you can convince the lowest working-class person they’re somehow better than the best of the elites, they won’t notice you’re picking their pockets. Hell, give them somebody to look down on, and they’ll empty their pockets for you. They’ll even vote for you."

    Well, I don’t know whether you would call me elite. At 79 I have enough money to meet my needs and pay for a few luxuries. My children are doing well. My remission from cancer has lasted 10 years. I’m still able to participate in 100 km cycling fun rides. And what greater pleasure can a man my age have than still going cycling with his kids?

    And here’s what I’m saying to working-class people, especially white American working-class men::

    You’re allowing yourself to be conned. You’re behaving like gullible suckers. How you could think a cheap grifter who conned vulnerable people out of their life’s savings could have your interests at heart escapes me. You may identify with him but he does not identify with you. To him you’re just a bunch of suckers to be exploited.

    And you know something else? Trump causes me no pain. He never has. What does cause me pain is watching you sell out your kids’ futures.

    The men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima would be horrified to see how pathetic you’ve become.
  • David Page
    commented 2024-10-31 11:34:44 +1100
    I would consider sexual assault as a form of bullying. An extreme form, in point of fact. And I think sending a mob to sack the Capitol could be described as a threat to democracy. And then there is mocking the disabled, and threatening those who disagree with him with prison.
  • mrscracker
    Just FYI: the UK podcast “The Rest is History” with historian Tom Holland is currently doing one on Lyndon Johnson. If you want to talk about bullying, intimidation, & raunchy behaviors. Whew!
    To be fair though they do mention Pres. Johnson’s social conscience & his early work teaching poor Hispanic children
    I’ve visited the LBJ Ranch & really recommend a visit. Surprisingly his gravestone is quite modest & very little distinguishes it from the rest of his family’s cemetery monuments.
    The podcast also draws parallels between 2024 & 1968.
  • mrscracker
    We’ve had a couple folks who felt inspired to get rid of a turbulent candidate Mr. Julian. One missed his target by only 1/4" & took out three others at the rally, one fatally.
    I’m sure inflated rhetoric doesn’t help but I expect there was more going on.
    I hope all the candidates remain safe between now & the inauguration.
  • mrscracker
    I’m old enough Mr. Mouse to remember Tip O’Neil & Ronald Reagan being able to get along. It’s a shame where we’re at today.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-10-31 05:56:06 +1100
    Oh mrscracker, I’m old enough to remember apologizing to George W. Bush for getting some facts wrong during a debate. Oh, for that civility again. Politics feels too much like a combat sports nowadays.

    Also, Kurt: Trump deliberately withheld aid from states whose governors were critical of him. That’s bullying behavior that affects millions of people, does it not? I’m kind of surprised you failed to bring this up, as Trump sought people to “bend the knee” before providing aid. Eagerly looking forward to your responses to any of these comments, Kurt :)
  • mrscracker
    It’s all mostly rubbish on both sides Mr. Mouse. I wish our election campaigns were more civil & mannerly but it is what it is.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-10-31 04:31:58 +1100
    Julian hit the nail on the head.

    Also mrscracker, referring to someone as the “enemy of the American people” or “fake news” echoes Hitler’s attacks on the free press in Germany, referring to them as “lugenpress” (lying press).
    I’d also argue that calling someone “the enemy” is kind of loosely echoing the “won’t someone rid me of this turbulent priest” and leads to stochastic terrorism.
  • Julian Cheslow
    commented 2024-10-31 04:14:44 +1100
    So Trump spreading demonizing lies about Haitian Migrants, and saying immigrants in general are poisoning the blood of the country is ok, but calling Trump supporters garbage crosses the line?

    I am so tired of Republicans suddenly asking for etiquette when they have had no problem demonizing everyone else
  • mrscracker
    “Do these people honestly not understand how much contempt Trump has for them?”
    *
    Respectfully Mr. Steven do you not understand why working class people identify with Donald Trump & will vote for him? There’s really been a disconnect. It’s fine to not like or support Donald Trump’s policies or personality but we should try to understand his supporters & not assume they’re voting against their own interests because they’re not bright enough .

    And I’m not putting words in your mouth or picking on you personally. Really. It’s just a general observation. I don’t like “elite” vs working class stereotypes, but it’s not a good look for the more elite status to lecture non-elite voters about what’s best for them.
  • mrscracker
    Mr. Mouse, I believe in a free press but I don’t believe the media is necessarily our friend. That really seems commonsense to me. There’s plenty of examples going back to Wm. Randolph Hearst & others drumming up newspaper narratives to lead us into foreign wars.
    US elections can involve bad behavior & name calling & we see it on both sides.
  • mrscracker
    Mr. Steven, that was a scam in FL with people on boats dressing up in Nazi gear . The authentic Trump supporters turned water hoses on them.
    I understand you are writing from abroad but trust me, there’s all sorts of scams & nonsense going on here. And sadly, I’m pretty sure the drama will continue no matter who wins the election.
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-10-30 22:47:46 +1100
    Do these people honestly not understand how much contempt Trump has for them?

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/17JvcTx78AJH7bIp_atyGCKSpIrJ7QqlZ/view
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-10-30 22:40:31 +1100
    Now where have I heard this sort of rhetoric before?

    https://go.screenpal.com/watch/cZ6vhDnc08H

    You can see the full video here:

    https://x.com/BlueATLGeorgia/status/1850747465948893186?t=lUitzCg7WYUzbvaXyZwOsw&s=09

    And here’s a clip of Trumpies with swastikas.

    https://x.com/sensiblemiddle/status/1850882711612764656

    Other than yourself, who do you think you’re fooling Mister Mahlburg?
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-10-30 21:33:08 +1100
    Also you omitted Trump calling the media “the enemy of American people”. Surely that’s more bully-like behavior than calling less than half of the country garbage. I can pull up more instances rather than just his making fun of a reporter’s disability that you offered
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-10-30 21:27:44 +1100
    Kurt,

    I’m shocked (not really) that you omitted Trump’s promise to use the military on “the enemy within”, calling the “radical left” “sick people” amongst other things, but felt it important enough to include Biden’s remark.

Like what you are reading?

Here are some more articles you may enjoy