Mean Mr. Trump

​     In Wednesday's New York Times there was an editorial  by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Thomas L. Friedman,

​...asking how, how, how in the world could we put a man like Donald Trump in the White House?

     Mr. Friedman framed the question around Trump's ignorance,  recklessness, and con-artistry.
     In truth I've been  pondering the same question myself, but not for the same reasons as Thomas  L. Friedman.
     I can't imagine how anybody could cast their vote for someone so mean.
    The latest chapter in this Mean Pilgrim's Progress is, of course, is the revelation of Trump's humiliation of Alicia Marchado when she was a 19-year-old Miss Universe winner.
      He thought it was funny to call her "Miss Housekeeping" because she was Latina and "Miss Piggy" when she put on weight.

       But this reveals nothing new about Donald Trump's meanness.

     Remember when he - a millionaire's son whose father snagged for him five draft deferments during  the Vietnam War - belittled Senator John McCain for his ordeal as a POW?

...and what about the time he made fun of a disabled reporter?

       Seriously,  who does that?  What kind of grown man thinks it's all in good fun to show derision of a person's suffering or mimic a person's disablity? 
        And even more confounding,  why  did his supporters not turn from him in  disgust after he ridiculed those men?  Why didn't his campaign crash and burn on the spot either time?  Why are there still people who defend his bullying of Alicia Marchado and, according to new emerging testimony, other young contestants while they were participants in his beauty pagent?
      Why do do so many millions of Americans find that kind of behavior acceptable for a President? 
       What's our problem?
       But worse than the cruelty disseminated by his verbal meanness is the outcome when his meanness melds with his greed, as it did in his Trump University scam.      
      According to Eric Schneidermann, a New York Post reporter and plaintiff in one of several lawsuits against Trump University:
        "Students were told that they would get “apprenticeship” support, access to private funding sources and even a chance to meet Trump himself, which got a high-pressure sales pitch. The three-day seminar started at $1,495, and recently released documents confirm that students were pressured to increase their credit card limits to enable them to pay as much as $35,000 for supposed special mentorship programs... Trump University students were defrauded of $40 million, with about $5 million going to Trump himself".
        How many people in already precarious financial straights are now drowning in debt because of  the Trump University scam?  How many others lost their life savings?  These weren't wealthy Wall Street moguls who were defrauded of some insignificant disposable income, these were struggling people, working people, poor people who were tricked  by their trust in the name of a billionaire who ultimately  used their trust  to put more money into his own already well-lined pocket.

     Does all  that not bother any of his supporters?
    And what about all the contractors, architects, painters, dishwashers, bartenders, and other laborers whom Donald Trump refused to pay or pay fully for their work?
        Does that treatment of others actually stand well with his defenders?

    And what about his response at the debate that his wish back in 2006 for  a housing collapse so that he could make a profit was called "doing business"?
     I don't know.  I call it being mean.

References:
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/opinion/trump-how-could-we.html?_r=0

http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/trump-university-its-worse-than-you-think

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/eric-schneiderman-trump-university-ran-scam-article-1.2666389

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/432010/trump-university-scam

https://www.yahoo.com/beauty/another-pageant-contestant-calls-out-donald-trump-for-being-sexist-and-controlling-121350461.html

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/donald-trump-lawsuit-contractors