Defamation by name-calling. Branding. We all did it in the 6th grade. We hurt feelings, we affected peoples lives. Some of us went into advertising, others weathered the storm and lived their lives anonymously or with great fanfare. Yet, others never grew up and continued to bully, name-call, terrorize and con. Why? Who knows, probably something in the subconscious or DNA or whatever it is that determines a person’s personality. Heredity-Environment.
Our sitting American president is one of these destroyers and self-destructing personalities. It points to immaturity, insecurity, certainly, but more so to mental instability. Donald Trump is still living in that 6th grade world environment calling people names, bullying, terrorizing, and conning. Having things his way.
He’s the President of the United States for Lord sakes! He should have more character than that.
In the immortal words of U.S. Democratic Congressman and Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, “Maybe you’re okay with that ...I’m not!”
Trump has called Schiff “Pencilneck”. He’s called Congressman and Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jerry Nadler, “Fat Jerry”. Trump has recently referred to the U.S. Secret Service Director, Randolph Alles, as “Dumbo” because of Alles prodigious ears, a beautiful set of radar equipment that Alles wears with pride and dignity. Trump has called Senator Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas”, Senator Marco Rubio “Little Marco”, Senator Ted Cruz “Lyin‘ Ted” and has disparaged Cruz‘s wife and his father. He has famously branded Hillary Clinton as “Crooked Hillary”.
If this was all in good fun, that would be one thing...but it’s not. It’s vicious and hateful, it identifies Trump for who he is at his core. It makes him feel superior. The superior schoolyard bully.
Trump crossed the line when he made fun of disabled New York Times reporter, Serge Kovaleski, shamelessly mocking his disability in front of television cameras.
If this was a movie, Trump would be the bad guy. He’d be Scut Farkus, the bully-boy in the movie, ‘A Christmas Story’. Most adults will blow off this name-calling and bullying, and that is probably the correct thing to do. But in the movie, Ralphie had all he could take of the bullying and he let loose on Farkus with a vengeance ...and he got his pound of flesh. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqVCiQLNcwM (you can bail out of this familiar clip at any point. You get the message).
Sometimes you must simply stand up and deliver. Fight back. Fight fire with fire ...it’s an effective technique used by forest service fire fighters and smoke jumpers. They start a backfire. They dig a trench and clear a line in the fire’s path then they start an opposing fire going in the other direction, toward the fire. When the two fires meet there is no place left to go, no more fuel to burn. The fire burns itself out dead in its tracks. This metaphor works for me because I see America in the middle of the biggest forest fire in its history.
So, let’s fight back and start by getting rid of Trump. Fight fire with fire. Let’s brand him into submission by calling him names that will stick and humiliate him beyond his own capacity to humiliate himself. Maybe he’ll take his marbles and go home. We’re dealing with a 6th grade mentality.
We need to create a negative imagery, far beyond what he has created for himself making him almost bulletproof, an imagery that he won’t be able to escape. We’ll need to be cruel, calculating and smart about it, because it must work. It has to work. It’s our only shot and we don’t want it to backfire.
This will be an all out assault for not only beating Trump in the 2020 election, but to assure he never even makes it to the election via impeachment, resignation, the Secret Service frogmarching him out of the White House in an orange jumpsuit, or the men in the little white coats marching him out in a straightjacket.
So, let’s brainstorm. Everyone just throw out a few nicknames for Trump just to get started. Okay, someone has just suggested, ‘Slobberfarts‘? His voter base will relate to that one. Wait! Stop! Remember, the branding nickname is best served playing off some outstanding physical characteristic. We can get more cerebral later working with Trump’s psychological defaults. So, how about just plain ‘Slob’? If you’ve ever seen him in a golf shirt you know what I mean. Others are suggesting, ‘Bully-Boy’, ‘Tweedledumb and Tweedledee‘ (take your pick), ‘Scrooge’, ‘Coward’, ‘Flub a Dub’...all good ideas. Or how about ‘Humpty Dumpty’? It’s applicable because it’s about a wall ...
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the King’s horses
and all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
Humpty Dumpty sat on the ground
Humpty Dumpty looked al around
Gone were the chimneys
Gone were the rooves
All he could see were buckles and hooves.
Not bad ...and we could make up our own clever lyrics to personalize Trump’s White House situation.
Of course, we can just go all out crude with his already well-defined characteristics like, ‘Bloated’, ‘Pathetic’, ‘Unstable’, ‘Immature’, ‘Adolescent’, ‘Lecherous’, ‘Monster’, ‘Demon’, ‘As**ole’, ‘Orangutan Head’, ‘Hay Hair’ ...and so on.
But for me, I’ve always likened Trump to the infamous 007 spy villain nemesis ‘Goldfinger’. ‘Goldfinger’ rolls all of the above characteristics into an imagery singular in its description both physical and psychological. Trump is a villain and he’s a dead ringer for Auric Goldfinger, the international scoundrel who “loves only gold.”
‘President Goldfinger‘ in my professional opinion would do the trick if we can stick it to him and make it a worldwide household word, like, well ...Goldfinger. It will be funny at first, and he will blow it off, maybe even try to turn it in his favor. But when the joke wears off and everyone, including his political counterparts around the globe, the media, Democrats and Republicans alike, and his voter base start referring to him as ‘President Goldfinger’ it will become not so funny and more intolerably sensitive, or insensitive, depending on which side of the name you’re on.
If Trump does make it to the 2020 election, I hope his opponent (I envision Joe Biden) uses the ‘President Goldfinger‘ moniker band at every opportunity. Ram it down Trump’s throat. Choke him with it. Don’t let him breath. Never refer to him as anything else while talking about him or talking to him face to face. Show him no respect as he shows no respect to others. Never let up until it becomes his universal nickname ‘brand‘ and takes on a media life of its own.
Make it stick. Make it work. In this case, unfortunately, defamation is our best shot.
Fire with fire. Remember, he loves only gold ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D1nK7q2i8I
John Kushma is a communication consultant and lives in Logan, Utah.
