Last week’s performance in the Oval Office presented Americans with a decision. How should we respond to an overt display of bullying of a foreign leader by our President?
Clearly, the event was staged for domestic consumption, not to influence the guest, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. The purpose was to elicit a response from Americans — admiration, praise, support — to what they were seeing on television. In what Reuters called a “choreographed onslaught,” President Donald Trump unleashed his fury on the South African leader, who was expecting to discuss trade relations between the two countries. Trump asserted that white South Africans were a persecuted minority whose land was being confiscated by Black people, and who “in many cases” were being killed. It was a media event in support of MAGA’s replacement theory claim that, even in America, the once-dominant white population is now under attack by hordes of Hispanic and Black people and immigrants.
However absurd that claim, the media production warrants our attention in its own right. In the newly palatial setting of the Oval Office, with cameras rolling, the most powerful person in the world unloaded on the vastly less powerful president of South Africa.
There is a word for strong people who pick on the weak: “bully.”
This was far from Trump’s first venture into bullying. Recall last February’s visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose country’s survival depends on America’s support. That, too, was an event orchestrated to impress an American audience. But for Trump the pattern goes beyond the Oval Office and even politics — it’s part of his fundamental character. Recall his “Access Hollywood” remark about grabbing women’s private parts: “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”
In every case, the question for us is the same: What are you and I supposed to do when we witness the strong abusing the weak? We know that it’s important to stand up to bullies, but who is to do the standing up?
Victims may try to defend themselves, and we admire them when they do. But victims are weak and bullies are strong, so in such fights the weak are by definition at a disadvantage. As a practical matter, therefore, any effective response to bullying has to come not from the bullied, but from intervenors. So in situations such as last week’s Oval Office performance it has to come from the onlookers for whom it was staged — from us, the American people.
We Americans, in short, are faced with a decision. We can take the side of the bully, cheering on every punch he throws. That’s what Trump counted on as he planned his confrontation in the Oval Office. Or we can choose to be passive bystanders — to do nothing but watch.
Or we can intervene on the side of the victim. We can speak up. We can say, “This is wrong!” And we can insist that this is not what we want from our leader. This is not what America should be.
The first step in making our voices heard should be to name the culprit for what he is, to call him out as a bully in just that word. Trump is often called an authoritarian, a strongman. But these are labels he seems to relish. And regardless, they are — to most Americans — abstractions. The word “bully,” on the other hand, is one everyone understands, and everyone knows is a condemnation. It’s the word we should be using.
Then we should express ourselves in every medium we can find — in radio call-in shows, in letters to the editor, in every appropriate public forum. We should make our presence known to members of Congress. We should go to their district offices and attend their public events. Finally, we have to vote.
At every opportunity we have to make our point: This person is a bully and we don’t like bullies.
The Bible has lessons about bullying kings who abuse their power: Ahab’s seizure of his neighbor’s vineyard, David’s elimination of his lover’s husband. In each case, God raised up a prophet to confront the king: Elijah against Ahab, Nathan against David. For these prophets it was their God-given mission to stand up vocally for the victim against the bully.
So here we are, Americans and witnesses to our time. The prophets of ancient Israel believed that they were commissioned by God to take a stand. How about us?
By JOHN C. DANFORTH/Kansas City Star
John C. Danforth, a Republican, served three terms representing Missouri in the U.S. Senate.
