A neighbor’s thank-you letter from Donald Trump (sadly disrespecting the office of the presidency)
Regular readers know I pick up litter every day. The other day I found this garbage wedged in the scaffolding of a building under construction.
(Come to think of it, a topic I should write more about is this bizarre practice of litter being wedged and stuffed into places and why people do it. I’m not sure, but I have some ideas. In any case, all this littering is socializing costs, spreading disease, ruining communities, raising taxes, and that’s the tip of the iceberg.)
It’s a letter from Donald Trump thanking someone who lives within a block of me for donating to his campaign. I had to comment on a few observations.
First, I shouldn’t have to note it, but I know Donald Trump didn’t write this letter. Staffers did, or more likely hired someone else to. Still, his signature is on it, so he must have authorized the process. If he allowed his signature to be put on it, either he takes responsibility for it or he harms his credibility. I’ll assume he takes responsibility for it.
I could cover many angles. A good one is that this neighborhood votes as strongly Democrat as probably any other in the nation. But I want to focus on how he describes the President of the United States of America. Insulting the President would demean the President if he backed himself up but several times he just hurls insult, so he demeans himself. The office of the President deserves, in my opinion, some respect even if you don’t like or disagree with the person holding the office.
Donald Trump doesn’t give the office that respect. Besides the insults, he is a former President but refers to himself as President. If he believed himself President, he wouldn’t be able to run for a third term.
I’ve learned that when people insult, they’re usually talking about themselves. Trump insulting someone else and their work for being crooked, vicious, wanting to destroy America’s prosperity, security, and freedom suggest that Trump is those things. Test out the next time someone insults you, or a recent time: did those insults describe themselves better than you? That observation wouldn’t be a mathematical proof, but the more you check, I predict the more you’ll see it.
Trump has more political experience than I do and has been President more times than I have, but if I were running, I wouldn’t insult others so much. In Trump’s case, I see his insulting message revealing more about himself than about his opponents. I’d insult less.
As for the donor, I wish he wouldn’t litter in our shared neighborhood.
The envelope:
Read my weekly newsletter
On initiative, leadership, the environment, and burpees