Shame on the name-callers

It’s hard to have reasonable discussions in the present environment of name calling. When the opening salvo denies the humanity of another person, you cannot expect much progress. Our insulter in chief is proud of his ability to put a negative label on anyone who disagrees with him. There’s “Lying’” Ted Cruz and “Liddle” Marco Rubio, “Low-energy” Jeb Bush. Mothers of black football players are (“SOBs”), Mexicans are “rapists.” Black women have “very low I.Q.” Black men, like Don Lemon, are “very dumb” while Lebron James is not quite as “dumb.”

But we should take the high road and not retaliate in kind. So shame on Chief of Staff John Kelly for calling the president an “idiot,” even though his Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin agrees with him. And shame on his former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for calling Trump a “moron.” Trump’s national security adviser H.R. McMaster called him a “dope” and his chief economic adviser Gary Cohn said our president was “dumb as s***.” Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said Trump was the “textbook definition of a racist.” Shame on all of them.

Bob Johnston

Spokane