Anyone with more than a cursory knowledge of child raising will tell you that children are little sociopathic monsters, and need to be socialized to understand the rules of humanity. That’s why, when we’re all little lads and lassies in plastic chairs who need help to reach things on the countertop, we learn a lot of important life lessons. We have to, otherwise, we’ll never be able to get along with your peers. But if you’re a chronic millionaire with inexplicable celebrity, turns out you don’t need to follow any of the rules that us normal folks are expected to live by! Here are a couple rules that your kindergarten teacher and Mr. Rogers taught you that Donald Trump just plain forgot.
1. Sharing is Caring
2. Clean Up Your Mess
From political messes to personal drama, Donald Trump has probably never met a mess he tried to clean up. And boy, does he excel at making them. There was an amazing time, soon after Trump first rose to political prominence, when other people were still trying to act like the world followed normal rules and Trump’s messes actually mattered to people. But now, forget it! Retweet a white supremacist, insult military veterans and their families, mock the disabled: Trump lives in a world of zero apparent consequence for any of his misbehavior. So why on earth should he try to clean up after himself? It’s not even apparent he knows he’s making a mess.
3. Be Nice To People
Being nice is a pretty core competency of most people. While not everyone is great at it, most of us can manage the bulk of the time. You learn as a kid that being nice to people means you get more friends, and friends are good! Being nice makes you feel good and it makes other people feel good. Which maybe explains why Trump seems so opposed to it. After all, why should he bother to make other people feel good!?
4. No Touching
“Grab them by the pussy” doesn’t exactly scream “I respect physical autonomy.” But a major part of socializing children is teaching them not to act out their anger or excitement by hitting other students. A lot of classrooms have “no touching” rules for exactly this reason, mostly because it’s easier to keep kids from touching at all than it is to explain the sometimes subtle differences between acceptable touching and unacceptable touching. But hitting is for sure straight out. If Trump ever learned about personal physical boundaries, it is far from apparent in his actions. Of course, there’s his famous “locker room” talk (which paints a bleak picture of what some males believe is acceptable banter, but that’s another story), but he’s also been reported to commit all manner of inappropriate touching, from the “mishandling” of pageant contestants to spousal rape. These don’t sound like the actions of a man deeply concerned with respecting physical boundaries.
5. The Golden Rule
“Treat other people as you would like to be treated” is a pretty good maxim to live your life by. In fact, if you had no other moral code, this wouldn’t be such a bad rule to follow. But if President Trump treats everyone how he’d like to be treated, he must be one serious masochist.
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