Editor’s note: This commentary is by Peter Berger, an English teacher at Weathersfield School, who writes “Poor Elijah’s Almanack.” The column appears in several publications, including the Times Argus, the Rutland Herald and the Stowe Reporter.
I sometimes swear at lunch.
That’s right. Sometimes I’m responding to insanities at school. Other times politics provokes me. Either way, there are days when I use language with my colleagues that I wouldn’t utter in front of my students. I apologize only to my colleagues for this, in case my occasional outbursts of Anglo-Saxon offend them.
I mention this because I’m about to address the president’s language, and I wouldn’t want to come off as either a prude or a prig.
My students swear occasionally, too, and not always just at mealtime. These things happen. When I’m near enough to hear their slips of the tongue, provided it’s inadvertent and benign, I usually remind them that there were words my friend Harvey and I said to each other at home sitting on the curb that we wouldn’t say at school. They seem to understand that what’s appropriate can vary depending on where you are, who you’re with, and the situation you’re in.
One of the marks of being an adult is recognizing what’s appropriate – in word and in deed.
You’re probably aware that President Donald Trump used foul language in a discussion of immigration policy. It’s not the first time his language has crossed a line I expect my eighth-graders to respect.
This earlier breach is usually these days referred to simply as the “Access Hollywood tape.” That’s the time he bragged about grabbing women by their genitals. A great deal was made then, and has been made since, of the particular term he used for the female body part he grabbed, and I confess that hearing that word in a presidential candidate’s voice was jarring.
Clearly, though, the word itself wasn’t the principal problem. Mrs. Trump and others dismissed it as locker room talk, and in terms of the language only, they had a point. Where they didn’t have a point, and where the real problem lay, was that a man who happened to be a candidate for president was comfortably bragging about having repeatedly used his power and position to sexually assault women. If you’re thinking of saying I’m exaggerating by calling it sexual assault, I’m thinking of asking if you’d say I was exaggerating if he’d grabbed your wife or daughter the same way.
In short, the words are crude and repellent, but the offense lies in the attitude they reveal and the actions they describe and attempt to justify.
Returning to the more recent language offense, as low-rent and unpresidential as his words may be, I’m certain Donald Trump isn’t the first president ever to utter profanity in the Oval Office. My problem isn’t that he said the word “s-hole.” My first problem is again the attitude his words reveal and the actions and policies they foreshadow, in this case the American president’s aversion, steeped in bigotry, to Africa and Haiti, his preference for places like Norway, and our government’s consequent immigration policy toward racially similar places and peoples.
A great many objections, sensible objections to my ear, have been raised by specialists and authorities who know far more than I do about foreign policy, military operations, and the decline of the United States on the world stage, a decline that is in large measure flowing directly from our president’s conduct and speech.
“America First” may be popular among some, even many Americans, but you can’t expect it to thrill other nations, especially our allies. It wasn’t the way to go in 1941 either, the last time that slogan made headlines, though it’s worth noting that German leaders at the time appreciated it.
Speaking of Germany, in a recent Gallup survey Germany topped the list of nations regarded as world leaders, with the United States having dropped 18 points from first to third place since President Barack Obama left office.
It’s clear the world doesn’t trust our president. Will it ever again trust the judgment of the nation that elected him?
As weighty and ominous as these international developments are, and as offensive as his words themselves may be, neither of those concerns is the most troubling for me. I don’t care whether he said “s-hole” or “s-house.” I do care that his defenders, United States senators, congressmen and Cabinet officers included, have chosen to hang their rhetorical, ethical and moral hats on that degraded and degrading distinction.
We shouldn’t be surprised that the truth seems increasingly under siege and irrelevant. We shouldn’t be surprised that public officials in service to the president increasingly find lying second nature. When he isn’t manipulating statistics, he’s baldly making them up. He seems to regard deceit as an option each time he opens his mouth.
Fake news appears far more often on his Twitter feed than it does on the front page of The New York Times.
I’ve dispensed with the conventional “alleged” when referring to President Trump’s remarks. I refuse to apply that cosmetic to every transgression solely because the transgressor refuses to admit his guilt in the face of incontrovertible evidence that he’s guilty.
When the secretary of Homeland Security, a woman of Scandinavian descent, is testifying before a Senate committee, and she’s asked if she’s aware that Norway is a “predominantly white” country, and her straight-faced answer is, “I actually do not know that, sir” – well, I actually do not believe her.
These are the pharisaical dodges our leaders now resort to. These are the depths to which sworn American government officers now routinely descend in defending President Trump’s words and deeds.
The question is will we the people allow ourselves to be drawn down to the same depths. Will we follow this prophet of fear and division? Will we swallow his lies, accept his antics, tolerate his perilous my-button-is-bigger pathology, and ignore his pernicious narcissism?
I know sincere, decent people who voted for President Trump. But politics, issues, and grand priorities aside, he is not right.
Loyalty to that which is wrong is wrong. Are we willing to ignore our better angels as he scorns his?
In his first inaugural address, at the onset of the Civil War, Mr. Lincoln sought the return of those better angels.
It’s time to seek them again.
Before it’s too late.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Peter Berger: Presidential oaths.
