I guarantee you that bullying incidents are going to be skyrocketing the longer Donald Trump stays in the race -- which means, through November. Until his bullying ways are completely repudiated rather than glorified, it's sending a terrible message to kids everywhere, which has not gone unnoticed by Washington Post opinion writer Petula Dvorak.
Trump’s vitriol is making it off the campaign trail and into the lingua franca of children at an alarming rate. Just watch coverage from Trump rallies to hear the next phrases kids will be slinging at school.
“Build the wall!” That was the chant at a high school basketball game in Indiana last week, directed by kids from a majority-white school who held up Trump signs and yelled at the opposing players and fans, who were from a predominantly Latino school.
“Get ’em out!” is what Trump screams at every rally when he sees Black Lives Matter and other protesters, even silent ones. This is not far off from what some third-graders allegedly said to two brown-skinned classmates in their Northern Virginia classroom. The mother of one of the children, Evelyn Momplaisir, posted an account on Facebook:
“I just got a call from my son’s teacher giving me a heads up that two of his classmates decided to point out the ‘immigrants’ in the class who would be sent ‘home’ when Trump becomes president. They singled him out and were pointing and laughing at him as one who would have to leave because of the color of his skin. In third grade . . . in Fairfax County . . . in 2016!”
As Dvorak notes, the effects are absolutely devastating.
“We’ll be banned,” predicted Daisy Scouts when they talked to me before the Virginia primary about their futures. Not “I want to be a rocket scientist” or “I want to be a doctor” or “I want to be a teacher.” They are afraid they will all be rounded up and deported. They are all Muslim.
Just another instance of the Republican Party claiming to be a family-centered political party, while ignoring the actual real living children and the effect their antics have on them.
And they do. These anecdotal accounts are not unusual. We will see more of them, because Trump has given haters permission to hate, and worse, to act upon that hate.
So media, here's something to consider. Take your eyes and your cameras off Trump for awhile, okay?
For the children.
