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The old saying that you have to give a bully his own medicine is an “evergreen” because it works.
No matter what his advisers caution, Donald Trump cannot resist giving negative, insulting nicknames to his opponents and critics. Nor can the mass media resist reprinting them in CAPITAL LETTERS, without giving the named persons a right of reply. He gets a free ride day after day, month after month, year after year.
Trump and his pollsters think the nicknames stick in enough people’s minds to make this an effective rhetorical tactic. Trump’s favorites include “crooked Joe Biden,” or “Lying Ted Cruz,” or “Crazy Nancy Pelosi.”
The targeted politicians have chosen not to respond with their own nicknames for the mega-slanderer-in-chief, not wanting to lower themselves into his mud pile. Nor do they ask their allies to hurl similar invectives that would be compelling because they would be so accurate.
The old saying that you have to give a bully his own medicine is an “evergreen” because it works. Would the New York Times continue to repeat Trump’s slurs if he immediately got slurred back in kind? Would the television networks keep conveying Trump’s insulting nicknames were he to become enmeshed by others mocking him and hurling insults with similar frequency?
It is astonishing how lacking in introspection the mainstream media has been about being so used, so frequently by this failed gambling tsar who took them for such a ride in 2016.
Not likely. Pretty soon Trump would realize that his foul-mouth utterances are buying a torrent of nickname backlashes. He is, you may recall, notoriously sensitive to personal criticism. Thin-skinned, he is.
One episode illustrates what can happen with a tit-for-tat response. When Trump was president, he went to a Washington Nationals baseball game, and a crowd started chanting “Lock him up.” This was after he would exhort his mass rallies to chant “Lock her up” Interestingly, the crooked Hillary chants ceased during his following rallies. Trump got a dose of his own medicine.
Without such neutralizing reciprocity, Trump will intensify his personal epithets against Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz in the remaining weeks before the November 5th election. Such a demeaning repetitive tactic is also an insult to most voters, who want candidates to focus on ways and means to improve their livelihoods, further their aspirations, and be more honest.
It is astonishing how lacking in introspection the mainstream media has been about being so used, so frequently by this failed gambling tsar who took them for such a ride in 2016. (See, NationalPopularVote.com).
Maybe some suggested nicknames will stimulate the media to stop playing his game, as it reports his regular contempt, just to get more ratings or readers. Think of our Founding Fathers and their wishes for elevated discourse.
Accurate nicknames Donald Trump will Dislike:
1. Dumb Donald
2. Convicted Crook Donald Trump
3. Lying Donald
4. Delusional Donald
5. Dangerous Donald
6. Disgusting Donald
7. Serial Law-breaker Donald
8. Deceiver Donald
9. Loser Donald
10. Trump-serial abuser of women
11. Lazy Donald
12. Violence Inciter Donald
13. Trump-obstructor of Justice
14. Dictator Donald
15. Dictator-lover Donald
16. Weak Donald
17. Dishonest Donald
18. Deadly Donald – Early Covid Denier
19. Fake Donald
20. Tax Escapee Donald
21. Unstable Donald
22. The Lyin’ King
23. Cheating Donald
24. Low IQ DONALD
25. Racist Trump
26. Know-Nothing Donald
27. Know It All Trump
28. Insecure Donald
29. Don the Con
30. The Incompetent Trump
31. Trump the Grifter
32. Betrayer Trump
33. Greedy Trump
34. Pardon Myself Donald
35. “I am the Law” says Lawless Donald
36. Corrupt Don
37. Ignorant Don
38. Bragging Trump
39. Trump Fantasy Land
40. Daily Lawbreaking Donald
41. Egomaniacal Donald
42. The Trump Dump
There is an important utility to such nicknames. They start reminding people of what Trump did to America in his four nightmarish years at the White House. The Democratic Party still has not reminded a voting bloc with short memories about Trump’s daily lies and sugarcoating of his record – from deadly early Covid denial to corruption and self-enrichment to promoting Wall Street over Main Street to Big Business runaway controls over Americans, to climate-violence-denial, to bashing the rights of consumers and workers, to giant tax cuts to the super-rich like him, to thumbing his nose at the Constitution and the rule of law, to obstruction of justice “as a way of life” in the White House, in the words of his former aide John Bolton.
Replaying that record is a must to dissolve the fantasies Trump weaves about his glorious four-year service.
The motivating, readable, relevant book for this critical voter education is “WRECKING AMERICA: How Trump’s Lawbreaking and Lies Betray All” (2020) – the most usable book on Trump’s nightmarish term in office. Mark Green and I also wrote this paperback for any return engagement. “Lest we forget.”
"From the beginning of this race, we've said that RFK Jr. is nothing more than a spoiler for Donald Trump, and we're glad that his running mate is finally admitting it," said one Democratic strategist.
Nicole Shanahan—the billionaire who poured millions of dollars of her own money into Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign before the conspiracy theorist chose her as his running mate—on Tuesday raised the possibility that Kennedy could drop his independent White House bid and throw his support behind former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
"There's two options and one is staying in, forming that new party, but we run the risk of a Kamala Harris and [Minnesota Gov. Tim] Walz presidency, because we draw votes from Trump," Shanahan told Tom Bilyeu during the latest episode of his "Impact Theory" podcast. "Or we walk away right now and join forces with Donald Trump and... we explain to our base why we're making this decision."
"I will say that Trump has taken genuine, sincere interest in our policies around chronic disease," Shanahan added. "He takes it seriously. For that reason, I think it behooves us to sit and see if we can actually make some real change."
During his first term, Trump repeatedly proposed massive cuts in federal funding for medical and scientific research and other programs.
Shanahan said she envisions a situation in which Kennedy "does an incredible job" as Trump's Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary.
Responding to Shanahan's remarks, Democratic National Committee (DNC) communications adviser Lis Smith said in a statement that "Nicole Shanahan isn't even pretending to be a serious VP candidate anymore."
"In one interview alone, she floated RFK Jr. for HHS secretary in a Trump administration, discussed her interest in running for governor of California in 2026, admitted that the Kennedy-Shanahan campaign has no path to victory, and raised the possibility of joining forces with Trump to defeat Vice President Harris," Smith continued.
"From the beginning of this race, we've said that RFK Jr. is nothing more than a spoiler for Donald Trump, and we're glad that his running mate is finally admitting it," she added.
The Washington Post reported last week that Kennedy sought a meeting with the Harris-Walz campaign to discuss a possible job in their administration should they defeat Trump and Republican U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio in November. According to sources, the Harris campaign has so far ignored Kennedy.
While Kennedy called that reporting "fake news," he said on social media Tuesday that "as always, I am willing to talk with leaders of any political party to further the goals I have served for 40 years in my career and in this campaign."
Shanahan's interview isn't the first time someone in Kennedy's campaign has given up the game. In April, Rita Palma was fired from her job as Kennedy's New York campaign director after she admitted behind closed doors that her "No. 1 priority" was to take electoral votes away from President Joe Biden, then the presumptive Democratic nominee and the "mutual enemy" of Trump and Kennedy voters.
Earlier this year, More Perfect Union revealed that ultrawealthy Trump donors were also bankrolling Kennedy's campaign.
Kennedy chose Shanahan as his running mate after she contributed heavily to his campaign, which has been derided as a potential "spoiler."
"I did not put in tens of millions of dollars to be a spoiler candidate," she said in the interview Tuesday. "They have, unfortunately, turned us into a spoiler. And we don't want to be a spoiler. We wanted to win. We wanted a fair shot."
Shanahan added that the DNC "made that impossible for us."
"They have banned us, shadowbanned us, kept us off stages, manipulated polls, used lawfare against us, sued us in every possible state," she explained.
In 2004, Ralph Nader, who ran an independent campaign for president, was sued in 18 states by the DNC in a bid to keep him off the ballot after he was falsely blamed for spoiling the 2000 election for Republican President George W. Bush.
Some Kennedy supporters recoiled at the thought of him joining forces with Trump. Kennedy campaigner Kyle Kemper told NBC News he would be "heartbroken" if Kennedy were to "sell his soul" to Trump.
"Don't make a deal with the devil," he pleaded.
It is up to you the citizens to demand such investigations by your senators and representatives.
Twenty-four years ago, Business Week magazine conducted a poll of the American people on whether corporations have too much control over their lives. Over seventy percent of them said YES! Since 2000, big businesses and their CEOs have gotten bigger, richer, less taxed and exercised far more power over the lives of workers, consumers, patients, children, communities, the two major political parties and our national, state and local governments.
That reality answers the question of why our corporate Congress has declined to hold public hearings confronting lawless corporate power with proposed legislation – the first step toward shifting more power to the people.
Weissman has put together a powerful legislative agenda to restore the rule of law over raw power.
Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen, demands ten key Congressional hearings – naming the Committees that can hold them – in the just-published edition of the Capitol Hill Citizen (to obtain a print copy only, go to capitolhillcitizen.com).
Here is a summary of them:
1. Rebuild democracy by ending big money in elections. Besides exploring public financing for elections, the Committees, for example, would make the connections between Big Pharma’s money and charging the highest drug prices in the world, despite the large subsidies given to the drug companies. Also, witnesses would give testimony to strengthen voting rights and eliminate partisan gerrymandering, among other measures.
2. Taxing corporations and the Super-Rich at least to the level of the prosperous 1960s. Tax financial speculation (see: greedvsneed.org), close “a raft of loopholes” and impose a wealth tax on “the outrageously wealthy.” Weissman writes: “How exactly did Jeff Bezos pay $1.1 billion in federal tax from 2006 to 2018, as his wealth grew by $127 billion?” How do so many giant, profitable companies get away with zero income tax for years at a time?
3. Anti-monopoly hearings to strengthen venerable antitrust laws, to catch up with many new forms of monopolization and protect small business, competition and innovation. New legislation should also “restore the rights of victims of anti-competitive practices – whether competitors or consumers – to sue monopolists.”
4. Roll back rampant corporate welfare by exposing the hundreds of billions of dollars a year in subsidies, handouts, giveaways and bailouts. From greatly inflated government contracts – as in the defense industry – to giveaways of public land resources, government-guaranteed giant capitalism must stop, and the savings devoted to public services in great need.
5. More and deeper hearings on corporate-driven climate disruptions. Congressional committees have had numerous hearings, but far more should be regularly held on how the corporate-driven climate crisis is harming people and property around the country, how efficient are the ways to mitigate or prevent such fossil-fuel-led disasters, and how the law must be toughened with stronger enforcement and budgets to forestall this omnicidal destruction that gets worse every year.
6. “Winning Medicare for All” hearings to show how other countries spend far less per capita and get better patient outcomes with far less paperwork, waste, over-billing and denials of care. Weissman notes how conditions are getting worse with “private equity investors rushing to buy up everything from nursing homes to emergency care companies.”
7. Legislative hearings to enact laws that end the over-pricing of prescription drugs in the U.S. that are “roughly three times what they are in other rich countries.” This would build on Senator Bernie Sanders’ hearings by fundamentally changing the conditions that breed ever-worsening “pay or die” unregulated drug industry price dictates.
8. Hearings that place the most obstructive anti-union formation laws in the Western world under reform spotlights. Union-busting law firms and consultants should be subpoenaed to give testimony, produce documents, and answer questions under oath. Long overdue are hearings on the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act (1947) to allow card checks and faster procedures between union certification and contracts with employers.
9. Also, long overdue are Congressional hearings that “shine a light on the victims of corporate wrongdoing who have been denied their day in court or the ability to obtain fair compensation.” On the table would be a “Corporate Accountability and Civil Justice Restoration Act” that protects the constitutional right of trial by jury that has been severely eroded by corporate lawyers and corporate judges.
10. Hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee to confront the surging corporate crime wave with a modernized, comprehensive federal corporate criminal law. One that is adequately empowered and resourced to deter, punish and hold corporate crooks and their companies accountable through a variety of proven mechanisms. Present laws are pathetically weak, easily gamed, and allow ever more widespread immunities for these comfortable fugitives from justice.
Weissman has put together a powerful legislative agenda to restore the rule of law over raw power. He has a Congress Watch group staffed by public interest lobbyists who can swing into action daily on Capitol Hill equipped with a combination of invincible rhetoric rooted in irrebuttable evidence to benefit all the American people.
It is up to you the citizens to demand such investigations by your senators and representatives.
I would add serious hearings on the bloated, redundant military budget. Absorbing over half of all federal operating expenditures, this vast appropriation is in violation of federal law since 1992 requiring audited budgets be sent to Congress yearly. The Pentagon is presently out of sight by members of Congress and out of control even by the Army, Air Force and Navy.
Another basic hearing is needed by the Joint Committee on Printing aimed at restoring the printing of Congressional hearings and reports for maximum distribution in depository libraries and use by citizens. Hearing transcripts and very tardy online hearing records give corporate lobbyists an advantage in lobbying Congress. They can afford to pay for rapid access transcripts or personally go to the hearings that citizens may not be able to easily attend. Few citizens can afford such luxuries. (See the February/March 2024 issue of the Capitol Hill Citizen).
By the way, voters should demand that Congress be in session five days a week instead of three days a week with long recesses. More hearings, and the critical information work of our national legislature, requires a full week’s work, for which they get fully paid. (We will have additional proposals for blockbuster hearings in the future.)