Is it wrong to make fun of Trump’s mental and personality defects?

Yes it is wrong. I don’t want to be teased so I will stop teasing Trump. After all I wished to see what would happen if Trump became the President.

If it means giving legitimacy to an asshole like Trump, then yes. If it means using ableist language that may be harmful to others, or if it means body shaming or supporting sexist language about supposed size of body parts, then yes.

There are an infinite amount of things to criticize Trump about. More importantly, we need to be able to form a cohesive vision that counters Trump and the Republicans. To rely on easy ridicule in the above forms is counterproductive and not a real opposition.

Is he rich and powerful? Sure. But much of the criticism isn’t of this fact. It’s that he’s rich and powerful, yet has the sensibilities of someone who is not. This criticism is very problematic.

It’s not about the fact that he’s a guy with serious character defects and functional shortcomings. It’s that he’s a president with serious character defects and functional shortcomings. This is not like making fun of an impaired kid on the playground. Is that what you were thinking, that we ought to be more understanding and tolerant?

Making fun might not be the right thing, but damn, would we hire a perfume tester with no sense of smell, or a quarterback who couldn’t run? It’s about fitness for the job, fitness that he totally lacks, and that deficiency is a terrible danger to us all. Humor is one of the very few effective weapons that anyone has against him.

It doesn’t bother Trump in the least to make fun of people, even the mentally challenged, women’s bodily functions and issues he accuses people of having that they don’t. I don’t think people should be made fun of or ridiculed either, but I don’t want him to think he has all of America hoodwinked into believing every word that comes out of his mouth. At this point, it is our only way to retaliate.

Not in the least!

I think it’s wrong. As wrong as calling Michelle a baboon.

Does he even know it’s happening?

Why should I be holier than thou?

Trump has no compunction about bullying and nastiness, even for things well out of a person’s locus of control. Why should anyone spare him?

@KNOWITALL Calling Mrs Obama a baboon was a racist insult.

Making fun of Yrump is fair game because he insults and makes fun of people with disabilities all the time, and yet he has no humility or self awareness that he might also have deficits, he vigorously says he is superior to anyone else.

@elbanditoroso we should spare him because….“They go low we go high…” I am failing you Michelle! But I am so disgusted and so mad….

The reason it’s fair has nothing to do with how this one president treats people with disabilities, etc., or it would never have been fair to joke about any other leader who never did such a thing. No other president has behaved with so little decency. Yet every one has been the butt of someone’s jokes and in many cases even merciless lampooning. Here, for just one example, is a political cartoon about Abraham Lincoln.

Humor, even cruel humor, is one of the ways people express opinions about those in power. In a free society—and not just our own, remember—rulers and leaders and other public figures have always taken their share of ridicule. We’ve heard of jokes and caricatures and songs and rhymes that have toppled leaders who otherwise seemed untouchable. Even those that use repressive force against their own people fear laughter and mockery. Did you know that China censors references to Winnie the Pooh? It’s not because they think Disney fans are going to mount an armed rebellion.

Mr. Trump will just have to be tough and take it, as all his predecessors have done. The First Amendment makes no exception for his hurt feelings.

Well, the main issue with Trump is that he’s in the White House and messing with the country and the world at large in very serious and problematic ways.

Making fun of him is an all-too tempting outlet for the upset. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really address or solve the problems. It’s not going to change any minds that weren’t already against him. And, it tends to close off this semi-supporters, who start to object to what starts to seem like bias and just “people who hate Trump, and are being silly”.

It would be a lot more effective if we could calmly stick to the near-infinite list of serious objections to his policies, appointments, edicts, conflicts of interest, inconsistencies, lies, crimes, and other material concerns, expressed calmly, soberly, and accurately.

As for the specific question here as written, while it may be a moral issue to make fun of people with serious issues, in this case he’s also a high-functioning terrible, terrible person doing massive damage of many sorts, so I don’t feel bad about it, but I do think it is a mistake of our own to focus time and energy on making fun or him or making extreme comments, regardless of how accurate and deserved we may think they are.

So the consensus from the fake intellects who only want nice people to answer their questions is they don’t care if he’s suffering from mental illness because hey, that’s what he’s there for & laughing/mocking him is all their tiny crass minds can summon up.
Ignorant, self righteous & yet, totally predictable.

That’s quite a stretch. I’m fairly certain that the actual consensus from fake and genuine intellects alike is that we all care a great deal that he suffers from mental illness. Since it’s rather clear, that everybody suffers because of it, it’s difficult to carry the argument that it’s somehow rude to point it out. Should those devoid of intellect (fake or otherwise) be allowed the luxury of ignoring the issue?

There’s nothing at all wrong with pointing out the potential existence of him having mental issues, that’s clearly perfectly reasonable & it’s also fair to say someone in that condition should maybe not be in office as real harm is being caused to ordinary americans as a result.
What is palpably wrong though & this is essentially what you asked in your question, is people plough on making fun of him, ridiculing him knowing that he, for all his faults, could be suffering. Says a lot about the nature of the critics, more indeed than it says about him.

@zenvelo But Trump isnt reading your posts, zen. You arent hurting him at all. Sooner or later you have to decide if the goal is taking back the WH or forming a Trump hater club as an outlet for your anger. Which goal is more productive one year from the election?

Trump may not be reading these posts but other people are. Forming a Trump hater club is a good first step for removing him from office. He is both amoral and generally incompetent and is most unqualified to be president. It is important to call attention to his faults to limit his power as much as possible.

@LostInParadise
You literally have opportunities here to explore people’s thought processes and values that are very different from yours. To prove how Trumps words or actions affect policy (foreign & domestic) or to prove factual negative impacts from his presidency on the American people and policy.

To me, it feels like wasted opportunity when you could be educating people here or elsewhere on things that matter. And while I understand you may loathe him and all he represents, it’s his job performance for the American people that matters, and the votes next year. Personally I feel it’s a poor strategical move because people tend to stop listening when the message is always negative as well as constant.

Interesting how most of you justify your behavior towards Trump while condemning it elsewhere. This is all straight out of Saul Alinski’s Rules for Radicals.

RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”

There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Petty, crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)

If you can’t beat the policy, attack the person.

@jaxk Apparently trump goes by that rule.

@jJakx, What “most potent weapon ” are we talking about? Telling lies? Alienating allies? Getting friendly with Putin? Shutting down the government? Damaging the planet by denying climate change?

I think I smell rule 12 in action.

RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)

@Jaxk You are so funny, that’s #13. But remember, this is not a political site, nor do many jellies (assuming) deal with political strategy on a regular basis.

@LostInParadise

The Rules
1 “Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.”
2 “Never go outside the expertise of your people.”
3 “Whenever possible go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
4 “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
5 “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
6 “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”
7 “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”
8 “Keep the pressure on.”
9 “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
10 “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.”
11 “If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside”
12 “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”
13 “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

*Just for perspective: The book was disseminated by the Tea Party conservative group FreedomWorks during Dick Armey’s tenure as chairman.[10][11] Hillary Clinton wrote her college thesis on Saul Alenski’s book, Rules for Radicals, and Barack Obama taught a course at the University of Chicago on how to organize communities using Saul Alinsky tactics. [

Obviously we picked different site for our ‘copy and paste’. Just as obvious is the ‘win at any cost strategy’, which is the point.

@Jaxk I use Wiki more often than (_) leaning sites and added the Clinton/Obama so jellies may pay closer attention. :) #mystrategy

Another effective tool is to go after an opponent’s supposed strengths. Trump has touted himself as an extraordinary deal maker. Here is an article that makes a good case to the contrary, as the government shutdown well illustrates,

Trump breaks 3 primary rules for negotiation:

1. Don’t force a zero sum solution. Trump will not compromise by looking at other security measures other than the Wall, or by allowing DACA,.

2. Don’t poke fun of your opponents. Trump has a nasty title for everyone he is opposed to.

3. Keep your word. Trump regularly reneges on promises. He initially accepted the congressional budget agreement before right wing media got on his case.

Trump is a loser even by his own standards. The sooner he is out of power, the better off the country will be.

@LostInParadise That was okay but Huff Post and very biased.

Good article here about why this is happening politically and this one doesn’t seem to have much bias imo.

“She and her colleagues have determined that we’ve reached this point of deadlock because of three main factors: a realignment following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which caused many white voters to leave the Democratic Party and resulted in more homogeneity of views within the parties (there are far fewer liberal Republicans or conservative Democrats than there once were); the closeness of elections since 1980, which inspires each party to attempt to prevent the other from gaining the slightest advantage; and income inequality, which is now again at the peak it reached during the Gilded Age, in exact parallel with polarization. That polarization produces stalemate and inaction, just as it did at the turn of the century.”

https://www.hks.harvard.edu/research-insights/policy-topics/democracy-governance/getting-win-win-negotiation-politics

@LostInParadise – You’re attempting to use rule #4 (Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules) but it falls flat.
1. Don’t force a zero sum solution. Trump will not compromise by looking at other security measures other than the Wall, or by allowing DACA,.
Dems have asked for more border personell and Trump has agreed with that. Dems have asked for more technology and Trump has agreed with that. It is only the physical barrier that Trump feels is also needed that Dems have gone wild.

2. Don’t poke fun of your opponents. Trump has a nasty title for everyone he is opposed to.
Ridicule seems to be the go to tactic these days and no one is better at it than the Dems.

3. Keep your word. Trump regularly reneges on promises. He initially accepted the congressional budget agreement before right wing media got on his case.
Keeping his word is what this whole controversy ia all about. Trump promised a wall and the Dems don’t want him to be able to keep his word.

We need a little perspective here. For $5 billion this whole thing could be resoled today. Or if the Dems would put a counter offer on the table, we could at least move forward.Alack and Alas, they won’t do it.

Here’s a rule: When possible, prudently choose your battles. Trump picked this one and it’s a sho’nuff loser. The dems are not alone in understanding this. The fkup is not about the absence of a counter offer. The blunder is in the bet that the wall justifies the shutdown of the government. It was a STUPID bet and the Democrats merely have to do NOTHING to prove it so.

People talk.

@stanleybmanly You realize Trumps base is fully supporting this shut down right? He may be under pressure from elsewhere, but as far as I know, it’s not the red states.

There’s a guy who comes down my street sometimes. He walks in a kind of jerky fashion, shouting angrily and punching invisible foes in the air. I feel sorry for him and would never make fun of him, but he’s scary too. I would like him to have shelter, food, and whatever treatment he needs, whether for drugs or mental illness.

But I don’t want him signing executive orders, appointing judges, or meeting foreign leaders. The White House is not the place for a guy with his problems.

It wouldn’t be even if he had money.

In trumps case I suggest ignoring him as this attention seeking is giving him too much air time of which the narcissistic behavior loves regardless of negative or positive.

WHY should he be treated different than any other president that we’ve had??? ONLY difference that I can see is that trump has more serious mental & personality defects than most of the previous victims!!!

@KNOWITALL Of course his base supports the shutdown! I’m tired of that bullshit about Trump’s base consisting solidly of “just plain folks”.

As long as Trump’s supporters are getting their paychecks, and not being otherwise inconvenienced, then of course they will support the shut down. trump supporters don’t have the brains to see beyond the end of their nose.

@stanley The point is, I dont think he’s getting pressure from his party or voters to end this.

Remember when I said people were so angry at the Dem tactics and Kavanaugh, and being called racists that they’d watch the world burn? Well here it is, right or wrong.

Even Trump’s supporters are beginning to see the light. His polling numbers have been declining. I like FiveThirtyEight, which is a meta-poll. In their poll, Trump’s approval has just dipped below 40%. Before the shutdown, he was just below 43%. You can look at the numbers from the other polls, which also don’t look too good for the president.

@LostInParadise Well he wasn’t supposed to win the election either, so….don’t trust those numbers too much.

Those poll numbers will continue to slide as long as the shutdown is enforced. And try as he will, there will in the end be no shifting the blame to his opposition for his intransigence. This is one of those occasions when the low level cognition of his followers must ultimately work to his disadvantage, for as dim as they are even they understand that he alone shut things down and he alone can rescind the foolishness.

Ideally for Donald, some natural disaster or catastrophic event will let him off the hook and give him an excuse to end the nonsense, but barring that, it is the shutdown itself that will become the catastrophe and goodbye second term, so long Republican Senate.

In two weeks people will forget that Trump held the whole nation hostage to coerce Congress into paying for his foolish promise, and damn the consequences. They’ll remember that “real” Americans got hurt by this impasse, and they’ll want to blame the people they already hate, whichever side they’re on. No one will learn anything.

Forty years ago, a wise person wrote, “It’s possible to sell anything to people who watch television.” I wonder what she’s thinking now.