Ever since the he swept into view last year, I have known the bully in Trump. Only gradually have I realized how central it is to his persona and to his success. I didn’t want to know that bullying could be so effective.
I’ve always hated bullying but haven’t fully credited its potential for power. I’m an Alpha male myself, and always figured I could show up any bully who came my way. I haven’t suffered the pain and indignities that women and my gentler friends have at the hands of such internally weak and injured buffoons. For the most part, I haven’t suffered the tyranny that comes when bullies achieve institutional power.
That’s not entirely true. I was a boy during the McCarthy period. The FBI would occasionally come to the door of our apartment in the Bronx, asking after my father, who was always at work. It was day time, after all. In retrospect, I can see the visits as harassment, indirect bullying. At the time, I was only mildly afraid. Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover liked that, no doubt. They wanted to create an air of anxiety in our culture, and they succeeded.
Now I see that there is no Trump without bullying. It is at the core of his “leadership.” His method is clear: He enters the scene, any scene, with an air of implied threat, and feigned welcome. He begins conversation with a criticism or an insult. When he doesn’t get his way, he pushes. When pushing fails, he manipulates. When manipulation fails, he insults. If the insults aren’t strong enough, he ups the ante through hyperbole and scandalous lies. He is relentless. He won’t stop until he has won…until he has backed people down, frightened them, worn them out, hurt them.
Trump fits well within our understanding of bullies. Here are a couple of definitions that do him credit: First: “Bullying is a distinctive pattern of harming and humiliating others, specifically those who are in some way smaller, weaker, younger or in any way more vulnerable than the bully.” Second: “…bullying is a subcategory of aggressive behavior characterized by the following three minimum criteria: (1) hostile intent, (2) imbalance of power, and (3) repetition over a period of time.[11] Bullying may thus be defined as the activity of repeated, aggressive behavior intended to hurt another individual, physically, mentally or emotionally.”
Trump is not the first bully to gain political advantage. His is a company of thousands, including McCarthy, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gadaffi, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Hitler, Stalin, and other dictators. Dictators are bullies by definition. They almost always gain power by bullying, though the centrality of bullying is not always obvious to followers at first.
Here’s the tyrant’s profile, written long before the current president-elect came to power. You decide who it calls to mind. First:
- Continual claims for attention and admiration
- Cold and uncaring behavior toward others
- Other people are seen only as an extension of the self to be manipulated and/or eliminated as needed; an inability to relate to people as people or separate from oneself
- Inflated/exaggerated sense of self-importance.
You may object to my grouping Trump with tyrants. So far he only has the potential to join the club, but he does have that potential. The likelihood of potential turning into reality most likely depends on the conditions in the larger culture. Following World War II, social scientists labored endlessly to identify the conditions that readied German for Hitler. They focused on the anguish and anger of the nation following the humiliating peace treaty for World War I, the country’s social dislocation and economic depression, the availability of ready made scapegoats, and the tendency towards “authoritarian personalities” among the populous. These are people ready to surrender their own power in favor of a strongman, who could tell them what to do. Many Trump supporters fit that same profile. They did not vote for his policies—what policies? They voted mostly for the promise of a fix, the highlighting of a bogeyman (immigrants) and the promise that he alone could make things right.
You might ask: why am I writing this essay when we already disapprove of Trump’s approach to leadership? The reason is simple: I want to put words to what we all know. I want to say it out loud. I want to be clear about the direction the Trump bullying might take. Bullying women is one thing. Slanderous reactions to John Lewis and his terrible Congressional district (he means the Black areas of Atlanta) is another. Bullying the press takes it a step further. . Imposing private security teams with the potential to be small armies take the trend too far. And trying to bully other countries, those who cannot and those who might retaliate, may speak mainly to the grandiosity that often goes with the bully.
You might say that people like Trump are “just” bullies, not tyrants, and it’s not fair to place Trump in their ranks. But don’t forget that these tyrants didn’t begin that way. Hitler, for example, portrayed himself as a “little man,” much aggrieved and neglected. Mao, Fidel, even Hugo Chavez were said to be men of the people. Dictatorships that don’t begin in coups, begin as populist rebellions that draw on the people’s yearning for change. These populist leaders, once they have gained institutional position, turn rapidly into dictators.
Their initial campaigns seek out enemies—often an oppressed ethnic group, like the Jewish people, or a callous elite, like the money-lenders (read financiers or read Shylock). Often enough, they are elected to office. Then the transformation from democratic to dictatorial leadership happens quickly and decisively. Here is how “leaders” move from bullying to tyranny:
| Control of public information and opinion | Use of the law for competition suppression |
| Vote fraud used to prevent the election of reformers | Creation of a class of officials who are above the law |
| Undue official influence on trials and juries | Subversion of internal checks and balances |
| Usurpation of undelegated powers | Conversion of rights into privileges |
| Seeking a government monopoly on the capability and use of armed force | Increasing public ignorance of their civic duties and reluctance to perform them |
| Militarization of law enforcement | Political correctness |
| Infiltration and subversion of citizen groups that could be forces for reform | Increasing dependency of the people on government |
| Suppression of investigators and whistle blowers | Use of staged events to produce popular support |
I could go into much greater detail about the transition from bullying populists to outright dictatorship, but I hope you’ve got the general idea.
The next and probably more important subject is: what to do. That will take some deep thinking and concerted action. Remember, bullies and tyrants do not yield to reason, to compassion, to ethical standards. In other words, they do not respond to the most cherished tools that are used by a non-violent opposition. For them, it is not just power itself, the ability to achieve what you want. It is the power over others. The pleasure, the thrill is in humbling enemies and doubters; it is the thrill of domination. What’s more, wielding power distracts bullies from personal insecurities, minimizing what can otherwise be incapacitating anxiety for bullies.
We know that it’s important to stand up to bullies. We have a thousand small, often personal, examples of standing strong. Edward R. Murrow and Joseph Walsh, who helped to dislodge Joe McCarthy from his perch, are shining examples of this approach. They are heroes. But it will take more than the courageous acts of individuals to keep Trump from tyranny. It will take organized opposition. Thank goodness, the opposition has begun.
Barry Dym 