I spent decades as a therapist, entrepreneur, and strategy consultant accentuating the positive, identifying and building assets, helping to redeem situations and people that appeared or, at least, felt irredeemable.?
It’s not that I can’t be critical, though:? Early on my progressive parents taught me how to be a “loving critic” of the United States, holding it to the values it espoused, shining a light on actions and policies that missed the mark.? They could be noisy and insistent, but my parents were builders, not wreckers. They also didn’t abide public, personal attacks for political gain, or for any other reason, in fact.? And as to our behavior as children, we never heard, and couldn’t have imagined, ridiculing anyone for the way they looked, where they came from, what they achieved.? I adopted this general posture as my own.
Yet since Trump’s first Presidential campaign, I have found it increasingly difficult to hew to this line.? I found Michelle Obama’s dictum—“As they go low, we go high”—ineffectual, a little limp. ?
Some of you, my readers, have worried about my growing pessimism, my frequent criticisms of Trump.? Even Franny has objected at times to my name-calling.? But I believe our times require us to abandon this etiquette.
Trump presents an existential danger to our democracy, and there is no question that we need to take him down.? We have to publicize, over and over again, what a weak, cruel, selfish man —and what a failure — he really is.?
The Harris Campaign is doing a wonderful job on this score so far.? I’d love to see them continue going high and low so that victory is assured -- maybe even a landslide victory. Were I asked to contribute my list of Trump attributes to highlight, here’s what I’d suggest:
- He’s a “loser.” ?I’d make it clear what a colossal loser he is: bankruptcies and failed businesses; divorces and other failed relationships with women that end badly, very badly; personal and business-related court cases that he loses — essentially everything he touches that has received public scrutiny. Trump believes “lover” is the worst epithet he can hurl at his enemies.? He should feel its sting, himself.
- He is cruel.? He literally likes to hurt people, through words and actions.? This include anyone he sees as against him – hardworking immigrants, parents of soldiers who died in service to this country, wounded veterans, you name it. There are so many examples to choose from.
- He is a narcissist.? The only person he cares about is himself.? I believe he would discard anything and anyone who interferes with his efforts at self-aggrandizement, maybe even his family.? Each Democratic campaign speech should describe a person or cause that he has simply discarded out of self-interest.?
- He is breathtakingly ignorant.? He knows so little about government, reads almost nothing, listens to no one.? He might be sly but he couldn’t map out a coherent strategy if you paid him. And we have paid him royally. ?Many would be partners, like the authors of The Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Project, are trying to strategize for him but, he can’t seem to absorb information, and jettisons advice when it seems too hard to understand. ?He doesn’t appear to enjoy learning.? Lots there to work with.
- He’s a bully.? I doubt that there is anything — anything — that Trump likes better than pushing people around, making them look like fools, hurting them, figuratively and literally. This is for its own sake (see #2), but also in order to demonstrate what a big deal he is. ?His belief in his own strength depends on his capacity to bully others. ?Each speech should highlight at least one of Trump’s most hideous bullying moments.
- He’s an insecure man, a weak man.? Anyone with real confidence doesn’t have to prove his manhood over and over again, doesn’t have to bully others, doesn’t have to praise himself ad nauseum, doesn’t have to pump the air like a professional wrestler. ?Find a good instance of this kind of weakness for each speech.
- He’s a coward.? Trump will huff and puff like the legendary wolf but, once confronted, he slinks away, as when Harris challenges him to a debate.? He also hates mention of those with military experience, or who have demonstrated courage in extreme conditions, eg., his deprecation of John McCain during his 2016 campaign.? This might also argue for Mark Kelly, like McCain, an actual military hero, as a VP candidate.?
- He’s a fascist.? It’s not only that he doesn’t revere democracy and justice; he would happily trample on both.? He simply wants power.? For its own sake.? In order to bully others.? In order to take what he wants. ?In order to keep his allies slavishly devoted to him and his opponents frightened.???
- He is nobody’s friend. He only pretends at friendship and does so when it serves his interest.? I doubt that he’s capable of really caring about anyone else.
- He’s an old man.? He can no longer understand complex thoughts, if he ever could.? He can’t put together his own coherent thoughts.? He forgets things — just as Joe Biden did, at his weakest.? He mixes things up.? It’s not hard to imagine that Trump is exhibiting the early stages of dementia.? It is probably a bridge too far to suggest Harris might observe this herself, but she might include psychiatrists who have already opined on the subject into a forum on the general issue.
- He doesn’t laugh. What kind of person can’t or, at least, doesn’t laugh, except a little bit and always at someone else’s expense. He never laughs with people or at himself.? ?I would turn around the attack on Harris’ laughter and point to Trump’s joyless manner.?
This is hardly a definitive list of Trump’s weaknesses but it is enough.? Emphasizing these personal, Trumpian failures, should work in our favor by convincing some swing voters that he really isn’t the right person for the job.? And this straight-forward attack will keep Trump on the defensive, so he won’t be able to regain his footing, correct his message. ?This is key.
Accentuating the negative may well help elect Kamala Harris.? And in this case, I bet my parents would approve of the strategy.