The Grow-Up Defense (Political Question)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hi SD,

I’ve been wondering about this for a while.

Do politicians use the “grow-up” defense? I’m talking about someone using the words “Grow up!” or an equivalent. It seems to me a useful way of asserting superiority.

More generally, an easy way to avoid answering uncomfortable questions about oneself and ones’ opinions would be to say something akin to “Grow up! America is in trouble because of this this and this, and you are acting like children!” Asserting oneself as the adult in the room seems effective, because you’re refusing to engage and “taking the higher ground”, i.e. rising above the perceived “pettiness” of your opponents.

I ask specifically about this idea of casting others as behaving in a childish manner, as a way of saying that they are focusing on minutiae or meaningless issues. To me, the only response to “You’re behaving like a child!” is “No I’m not, you are!” which sounds childish in itself.

For Trump, specifically calling others’ maturity into question seems a slam dunk because it plays into his style of bombast and aggressiveness, and really hits 'em where it hurts.

For opponents of Trump, it seems a slam dunk to question Trump’s maturity for no other reason than to assure he’ll respond to such a sensitive and personal attack.

No one in geopolitics wants to be painted as a child, or immature, which to me makes it such an appealing attack to use. Why don’t we see it more?

Thanks,

Dave

2

Poking fun at an immature, childish narcissist who has his finger on the button, no matter how appropriate it may be seem, is a bad strategy. We have nothing to gain, and everything to lose. Impeachment is the only way to deal with incompetent or illegal activities by a government official.

3

How about, “No, *you *are acting like a parent. Knock it off!”

4

We probably don’t see it more because if you use any particular tactic too often, it loses effectiveness. The idea is known in politics; in modern politics, Reagan was probably most well-known for deploying the tactic at key moments (“There you go again.”)