Trump needs to grow a much thicker skin
It was evident throughout the just-completed presidential campaign that Donald Trump, now the president-elect, is incredibly thin-skinned and has a propensity to lash out at the slightest perceived provocation.
That whiny, woe-is-me attitude was on display again this past weekend.
First, Trump was offended by what he thought was mistreatment of his soon-to-be vice president, Mike Pence, following a performance of the smash musical “Hamilton” in New York City.
For those who missed the story, Pence was in the audience to take in the show, and at the end of the performance, actor Brandon Victor Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr, addressed Pence on behalf of the cast, saying, “We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights. We truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of us all.”
These seem, to us, to be very legitimate concerns, based on what we heard from Trump during the campaign, and based on the people he is considering for positions in his Cabinet.
But Trump apparently was incensed, as he often is. He tweeted that Pence had been harassed by the “Hamilton” cast, accused them of being “very rude” and demanded an apology. The next day, he returned to Twitter with this: “The cast and producers of Hamilton, which I hear is highly overrated, should immediately apologize to Mike Pence for their terrible behavior.”
We’re not sure where Trump heard that “Hamilton,” which won 11 Tony awards and is sold out for months in advance, was overrated, but since when is an apology necessary when Americans express their concerns to an elected official, one who will hold great sway in determining the quality of their lives over the next four years? And it borders on the hilarious, and the ridiculous, that this call for an apology comes from a man so vulgar that he took to a stage and mocked a disabled man.
We’d also note that before he made his remarks from the “Hamilton” stage, Dixon implored theatergoers not to boo Pence.
And Pence, to his credit, called “Hamilton” an “incredible production” and said there was no need for an apology. In an interview with Fox News, he added that Trump fully intends to create a government that works for “all people of the United States.”
The “Hamilton” incident wasn’t the only burr that got under Trump’s saddle last weekend. He also took issue with the latest depiction of him on “Saturday Night Live,” complaining on Twitter that the segment featuring Alec Baldwin was “totally one-sided” and “biased.” Trump also made a plea for “equal time,” apparently not realizing that the equal-time provision in the federal 1934 Communications Act doesn’t apply to comedy show parodies and is only a consideration during political campaigns.
Our advice to the incoming president is to grow a much thicker skin as quickly as possible. When you’re president, the criticism is unrelenting, and often unfair. Fox News and right-wing talk radio hosts have spent eight years bashing President Obama, who, to his credit, largely ignored his politically motivated critics and kept his nose to the grindstone.
His detractors don’t like it, which is their prerogative, but Donald Trump will be our one and only president come January. His supporters are calling on those who have opposed Trump to come together and work for the greater good of the country. We hope that is possible, but we would remind Trump’s backers, and the president-elect, that this is a two-way street, and the views of the opposition must be respected, or at least tolerated.