How many times in the last years have I heard President Obama called simply Obama? One political spot for Idiot-Boy Rick Perry comes to mind.
Trump is Trump & will remain Trump. Or The Donald. Or Il Douche…
You address a President as Mr. President. You can talk about a President using any term you wish. The media comfortably just uses Presidents’ last names in reporting. Back in the day, they would say, “Mr. Roosevelt”, or “Mr. Lincoln”.
Impressed as I am with your excellent taste in epithet, I am moved to a pedantic quibble. A minor point, but that’s the trouble with quibbles.
The question revolves around addressing the Pestilence-Elect directly, as if in conversation. Not so much speaking about him, but speaking directly to him. I am confident I will have no such occasion, except for something in the “open-letter” format.
You address them respectfully at “Mr. President.” Problem is, Trump ran on a campaign of disrespect. Respect is earned, not granted, and Trump hasn’t earned it.
So there will indeed be many people who will refuse to address Trump respectfully, even more than Obama (see the “You lie” in the middle of his speech as a clear point of disrespect).
There is no automatic respect for anyone based on their position. Being President will not get him automatic respect. It actually made him less respectable in my eyes. I could actually respect him for what he was.
But now he’s the first president who didn’t actually know what the president does or how much work is involved. He’s the first president to cause two international incidents between election and taking office. He’s the first one to be incapable of listening to security briefings. He’s the first one to lobby against freedom of speech, and the first to attack our military vets for being losers.
He is profoundly unqualified for the job, without even bringing up political party. So he doesn’t get respect. I will, as I have said before, refer to Acting President Pence. I don’t agree with him, but he’s not incompetent, and thus gets the respect of his (unofficial) office.
That’s fair, IMO, although if you’re meeting with Trump personally I’d advise letting him break protocol by being insulting first. Anything else will likely get your meeting with him ended before you can get anything else out of your mouth. Whereas knowing Trump, if he’s already being an asshole, he’ll want to keep arguing with you even if his aides would really like to just end the meeting.
I, for one, welcome our new abject comboverlord.
One of the sad things I’ve witnessed in the last two months is the poor behavior by Democrats and those who sympathize with the “liberal” side of things. When President Obama became President, one of the complaints that Democrats and “liberals” had was that he was not treated with respect due to him for being President. (We can, in a separate thread, hash out how much respect George W. Bush got back in 2001; indeed, we have on multiple occasions if my memory serves me correctly!) If you complain about a behavior, and then you adopt that behavior yourself when the chance occurs, you are what we call a hypocrite.
One of the perceptions that “liberals” have is that modern people who identify as socially “conservative” often behave badly in the political arena. That is, they act as jerks, talking loudly in disrespectful language about people and things they disagree with. Presumably, the contrast would be a more sophisticated way of behaving: respectful disagreement, without loud, noisy, partisan, attacks that lack a willingness to engage in reasoned discourse.
I hate to say it, but I’ve seen very little of that post-election from the people who feel they lost. Instead, i’ve seen some of the most ill-tempered, spoiled rotten behavior from adults I’ve ever seen. It’s one thing to state your beliefs and fundamental principles forcefully; it’s entirely another to propose to be intentionally disrespectful to the man who, like it or not, won the election. HIS behavior in the future can determine exactly what measure of respect he deserves to be treated with as President. But OUR behavior as a society should not descend to the level of those whom “liberals” have spent 8 years castigating. Unless, of course, you simply are a hypocrite on such matters.
Wouldn’t “conservatives” be hypocrites for treating the President with abominable disrespect and then demanding respect for the President-elect because he won?
The point is that whoever is occupying the White House the office of the Presidency itself needs to be respected by both sides. It’s the same principle as in the armed forces. You might know an officer that is passing by to be a skunk, a buffoon, whatever, but you salute the guy anyway because you’re not saluting him you’re saluting the commission he holds.
Yeah that Speaker’s gavel really has “dead-end” written all over it :rolleyes:
Somebody draws a swastika on the American flag, smears it with shit and sets it on fire, standing there with my hand on my heart starts to feel kind of wrong.
I’m not from the U.S., but here’s my two cents: U.S. media demagoguery is one thing, but U.S. politicians showing disrespect for office is playing right into the media’s hands. Obama has my respect for the class and aplomb with which he navigated two difficult terms as President, but I can’t help but notice how often he referred to “Secretary Clinton” and “Bernie” in the subsequent campaign.
I’m pretty sure that story about swastikas and setting stuff on fire was a false-flag operation.
This is getting a bit confusing for a boor of little brain. If I don’t respectfully address someone who I have contempt for…then I’m a hypocrite?
Has it come to this, then? “Sure, I support the biggest disaster involving an inflated bag of gas since the Hindenberg! But you guys are hypocrites!”
How about “hippycrit”? Be OK with that.
So, what do you call a Republican who complains about Trump being disrespected, when they looked the other way for eight years of right wing slander against Barrack Obama?
Bingo.
4 to 8 years of a Trump disaster almost might be worth the rendering of loins around here.
Philosophically, not politically. I don’t share your rose-colored view of the American right wing nor the political party that does its will. Frankly, if all Republicans got raptured tomorrow, I’d throw a party.
Well, he won’t be. For infinitely better reasons than the right-wing racists disrespected Obama.
I’m going to make a macro for this. The man is disrespecting the office. It’s very disingenuous and hypocritical to deny it. He is disgracing it before he even gets in to office, and he is not owed the kind of honeymoon some people are demanding for him. That was what the campaign was for: we observed it, he got his delegates and most people voted against it, and he has shown no ability to change or mitigate any behaviors that he showed us when he was campaigning for our votes. That was plenty of honeymoon. No more BS and whining about it. Presidents take hits and criticism. The bigger the asshole the more he’s going to have to take. He has a choice and you do too.
Do you judge your behavior by the standards of the other side? Or do you judge your behavior by the standards you set for yourself?
Since it has been Democrats complaining about the lack of respect the president got, it presumably should be Democrats who step up and treat the incoming President properly. N’est-çe pas?