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Donald Trump Calls Rosie “an Animal”

I liked Donald Trump once. I’m not sure why. Something about his persistence, maybe. But the more I see the way he acts (I used to live a few blocks from Mar-a-Lago, where I’ve had a few lunches and attended a handful of events) and the more I hear him speak, the less I like him.

He has a penchant for fur (he gives it away at his pageants, and his new-ish wife wears fur), for which I’ve written him several times, and ever since The Apprentice, which I saw one season of, he appears to have become mean-spirited. Or maybe he was always that way. Who knows, who cares.

What I do care about is Trump conducting his public feud with Rosie, and saying:

  • she’s an animal;
  • she’s a fat pig; and
  • she wanted me to throw [Miss USA] away, like a dog (actually, he said dawg).

These are not the words of someone who is: a) thinking about what he is saying, and/or b) caring what kind of message he is sending. (For a thoughtful analysis of such harmful language, go to "Beauty and the Beast.")

Trumps rants tell us a lot about him. Each time I hear him speak these days, I lose more respect for him. But, like it or not, at least for now, many people listen to him, watch what he does, and care about his business ventures. He clearly doesn’t care what kind of image he is presenting of himself, and stands behind whatever money he has as a testament to his success as a human being. He hasn’t gotten the memo that financial success is flimsy support of character and meaning in human life.

In Trump’s mind, there is nothing on this Earth less deserving of respect, than animals. That’s what he’s saying. He also lets us know what he thinks you can do when you don’t want to give someone a second chance: throw them away like a dog. Note to self: Don’t get Donald a dog for Christmas.

Our language not only tells the world about us, but it perpetuates (or not) myths that already exists in the culture; it keeps them alive. So if we are having a lazy linguistic day and, for example, refer to a rapist/killer as "an animal," that fuels the misconception that animals would ever regularly engage in the behavior we find in the news every day. The reality is that the most heinous acts are committed by people, not animals. If we want to stoop into the depths of publicly-insulting one another, let’s at least use language properly.

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