A tragedy since Trump’s arrival in Washington has been the crude coarsening of public discourse.
On Easter Sunday morning – April 5th last – the most powerful man in the world posted a message for Iran on his Truth Social account, which read: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F****n’ Strait, you crazy b*****ds, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J TRUMP.”
The capital letters are his. The asterisked letters are ours. Praise for Allah, on the morning of the most significant Christian feast, is crass ignorance of the worst kind. Bigly.
American presidents have not always been so graceless. An example being Trump’s fellow Republican and predecessor Ronald Reagan, US president through the 1980s, a likable, civil and witty man, appreciated even by those who profoundly disagreed with him politically.
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He once said that: “Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.”
A recession was “when a neighbour loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when [then US president] Jimmy Carter loses his”, he said.
After the assassination attempt on him in 1981, in which he was seriously wounded, he said to surgeons about to operate on him “... please tell me you’re all Republicans.”
We’re not behind the door ourselves when it comes to politicians being witty. Here’s the late former minister and TD Conor Cruise O’Brien on Irishness: “It is the condition of being involved in the Irish situation, and usually being mauled by it.”
A favourite with many of a blue hue politically is Fine Gael leader James Dillon’s 1942 alliterative retort to an accusation by Eamon de Valera that he was pro British: “My ancestors fought for Ireland down the centuries on the continent of Europe while yours were banging banjos and bartering budgies in the backstreets of Barcelona.”
It is claimed that Dubliner and playwright George Bernard Shaw sent Winston Churchill two tickets for an opening night, with the advice: “Bring a friend, if you have one.” Churchill responded: “... will attend second [night], if there is one.”
Insult, from Latin insultus, for “scoffing, contemptuous treatment”.
