Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Hard to deal with

The Washington Post maintains a database of Trump's lies, boasts and sheer nonsense, but I know of no separate listing for all the women he has called "nasty."  To be clear, this characterization is the unfortunate result of having a vocabulary smaller than that of Koko the gorilla (1971-2018).  Nor is the word applied only to women -- recently he declared the Fox broadcaster Juan Williams "nasty" for criticizing his bungled approach to trade with China.

In general, however, Trump reserves "nasty" for women who are smarter and better than he is, who refuse to be intimidated even when he creeps up and snuffles behind them, as in the debate with Hillary Clinton.  A quick survey reveals that other honorees include Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Elizabeth Warren, Sally Yates, Meryl Streep, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Frederica Wilson, Michelle Wolf,  Rosie O'Donnell, April Ryan, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Carmen Yulin Cruz, Megan Rapinoe, Christine Blasey Ford, Oprah Winfrey, Meghan McCain, Rashida Tlaib, Nan Whaley, Rachel Maddow, Ilhan Omar, and all the women who accused Roy Moore of molesting them as teenagers.

I don't know how he has so far resisted the temptation to slag off foreign leaders who displease him, since so many are women (Angela Merkel!  Jacinda Ardern!).  That precedent was broken today, when the Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen went on the Nasty list for refusing to consider his very generous offer for Greenland.  The Danes were the clear winners, because they won't endure a state visit from His Orangeness, but they will entertain Barack Obama in late September.  And they get to keep Greenland.  All Trump gets is an enhanced reputation for childishness, louder speculation about his mental health, and a lot of talk about what the Great Greenland Folly is meant to distract from.  (Possibilities range from the stumbling economy to impeachment proceedings to the stuff in Jeffrey Epstein's vault.)

Dictionary.com defines "nasty" as "bad or hard to deal with, encounter, undergo; dangerous; serious."  Stay dangerous, ladies.  Stay serious.  

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