None of this is normal. The presidential tweets are not normal. The bashing of the press is not normal. The bald-faced untruths are not normal and even calling the first lady of France, “very beautiful physically” after kissing her on the cheek is not normal.
None of this is normal. The behavior, the rhetoric, none of it represents what the office of the president has been about over the last 241 years, nor should it be about the next several years.
What’s also disturbing is how we, as Americans, are becoming used to this behavior where and how some — and I stress some — are applauding it. On both accounts this is just plain wrong. Let’s go back to first grade: I’m sure you, like me, were trained by our parents, teachers and other loved ones that being honest and telling the truth would be a virtue that you would carry for the rest of your life and as an extension of that, treating others with kindness and dignity would yield results not only on the playground, but in friendships and other relationships that would last a lifetime.
What I find most interesting about the president’s behavior is that he appears to not only have any childhood friends that speak fondly about their time with him, but there also appears to be no one with the exception of his daughter that speaks about the president in human terms. What is normal is for the president to release pictures of him when he got his first car, or his first prom date, or the day he graduated college — something, anything that shows the human side of the person who occupies the most powerful job on earth and along with those pictures are people who talk about the person and give us context about their character, their warmth and the “guy that we don’t know”. To my knowledge, these types of people do not exist, let alone the pictures and not only do I find it troubling, but also telling.
It’s troubling and telling that no one can or will speak on the record about the president’s childhood, his ability to share things on the playground, or his time in college shooting the breeze in the dormitories. But of course, we know the answers to these questions. It’s because the president most likely does not have any childhood friends that are fond of him. It’s also very likely that his family members are very aware of the president’s true personal behavior and are either just like him or not like him, but do not want to go on record saying negative things, which is understandable.
What’s not understandable is how we as a society are becoming numb to all of this and in some instances either laughing this off or not acknowledging that this isn’t who we are as a people and as a society. We deserve better, not only from our nation’s leaders, but also from ourselves. This is not normal and it’s not funny.
Robert Traynham is the vice president of communications for the Bipartisan Policy Center. He can be twitted at @roberttraynham.
