Roll Tide? Nope, Roll Trump

It’s graduation season. A time for words of inspiration offered to newly minted graduates about to embark on the next stage of their lives. A teaching moment during a time of celebration and the last thing students will hear from their institutions of learning before heading out into the world.

I suspect that schools spend a great deal of time thinking through who they want to bring forth in that moment, and what messages that person will send to students and families. The University of Alabama chose Donald Trump. And by doing so, the school chose to be the latest enabler of a never ending cycle of his abuse and lies that send the worst messages to our young people.

Let’s spend a few moments here highlighting some of what Trump imparted to the University of Alabama community. He took the opportunity to once again attack transgender athletes, going so far as to prompt the audience to egg on his mocking imitation of a weightlifter. And no, I am not going to link the clip here because I have no interest in amplifying it. He used flippant and derogatory language to describe the trans community, and made statements like “they had transgender for everybody”. First of all, I don’t even know what that means, but most importantly his level of disrespect for other human beings is horrifying — though of course not surprising. What also horrifies me is that a university actively chose to platform Trump’s hate as their send off to their students. Students who are seen laughing as Trump mocks and taunts. Students who will now go into the world thinking that mocking and taunting are a-ok, as modeled by the President of the United States and condoned by the university that gave them the tools to make their way through the world.

I also want to note that Trump had plenty of other harmful messages to share. He praised those who chose “liberty over lockdowns” further undermining anything that resembles public health and community accountability. He told more lies about immigrants, equating being born in another country with possessing inherent criminality and giving the students license to hate immigrants. He claimed again that the 2020 election was rigged, encouraging distrust in institutions and modeling the art of telling a lie often enough that it becomes a part of the national lexicon.

Now, graduates, take what you have learned and utilize it!

Of course, this is just the latest barrage in a never ending torrent of lies and insults coming from a man that we have just elected to the highest office in the land. For a second time. But for now I want to focus on his mockery of trans people, his demeaning words and actions evoking the memory of his mocking a disabled journalist. Remember that? People often talk about Trump’s bullying behavior, and while that is certainly an accurate statement I don’t think the term is quite specific enough. It’s abuse, and it’s a part of an ongoing pattern of abuse.

If you’ve read my previous essays you know I frequently refer to Trump as our Abuser-in-Chief, drawing from my years of experience working with survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Trump is a serial abuser of women who has filled his cabinet with other abusers of women. And last week, he was given the opportunity to demonstrate how to be abusive and not just get away with it, but have an audience of professors and mortarboard wearing students cheer you on.

I have long worried about the impact of Trump’s behavior on boys and young men. As people wring their hands about the role of the manosphere on the rightward lurch of this generation of men, I say look no further than Donald J. Trump. To be sure, Andrew Tate and his ilk are disgusting racist misogynists who have caused an unquantifiable amount of harm. But when boys see the President of the United States — a man held liable for rape — unleash his abuse without pushback what does that tell them? And when that abusive man gets elected AGAIN what does that say about the consequences of being abusive?

It says that there are no consequences to being abusive. That in fact, it’s a path to achieving more power.

One of the most gratifying things I did in my years as a survivor advocate was to run programs about healthy relationships for youth. I was just talking with a colleague about a program we did at the largest high school in Massachusetts. Because the school was so large we did a train the trainer model, working with a peer mentor program to equip them to talk with other students about dating violence. We worked through identifying red flags, explained active consent, and debated whether jealousy was okay or not in a relationship. We gently pushed students to think critically about what makes a dating (or peer) relationship healthy vs. unhealthy. But we also equipped them to call out abusive behaviors when they saw them in their peer communities. Why? Because research shows that adolescents whose peer networks condone or minimize violent behaviors are more likely to adopt these attitudes or behaviors themselves.

Trump is an abuser. And a lot of people condone, minimize, explain away, or even celebrate that. What does that tell our youth? The University of Alabama just rolled out their crimson carpet to Trump so he could further spew his abuse and then sent their graduates out into the world. What did they take from that?

I recently had conversations with two friends who are dads to middle school aged boys, and are both finding themselves having uncomfortable conversations with their sons about who Trump is in the world. How do you explain to these boys how such a bad man could get elected to a position of power? And how awkward is it to have to call out the president’s awful words and behavior on pretty much a daily basis? But you know what would be worse? NOT having those conversations and instead letting these boys absorb what they are seeing without challenging it.

These dad are doing a hell of a lot better than Bama did. And I appreciate them so much for that.

Here is my call to action. While we have more years of Trump’s abuse to endure (it’s unfathomable, I know) we should never remain silent in the face of it. When he gets abusive, we get loud. We call it out, challenge it, and clearly say that it is absolutely wrong. We tell our children and young adults that mocking, demeaning, insulting, and abusing are never okay — whether it be a romantic partner or a marginalized community. We do that at our dinner tables, on soccer pitches, and on our social media.

Inevitably, our kids and young adults are going to consume information about Trump. We need to sit with them while they do so and ask them what they think, explore the difference between attacking policies vs. attacking people, and explain the impact of violent rhetoric. Name the abuse.

And universities, please do this generation (and our country) a favor — don’t invite Trump to your biggest event of the year. Just don’t.