One thing this round of presidential elections has made me think about is what it means to be presidential. As a guy who supported Barack Obama as a hero and badly needed role model for African Americans everywhere, I always felt he fit the well within the definition of "presidential: first and foremost, admired and admirable.
Which is why when I heard about a "beauty pageant" going on at the University of South Florida's Tampa campus that would poke fun at GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, I had to check it out.
In collaboration with the political action committee For Florida’s Future, USF students held a mock beauty pageant in honor of Trump while also trying to get people to register to vote ahead of the October 11 deadline. The pageant, they believed, was the most appropriate way to convey Trump’s history of objectifying and demeaning women as an employer and a media personality. Each contestant wore a sash sporting a nasty comment Trump has uttered about a woman: “Miss Piggy,” “Miss Bimbo,” “Miss Flat Chested,” “Miss Piece of Ass” and “Miss Housekeeping.”
Things a role model would say, right?
If Obama had whispered half of the comments that Trump has loudly spouted, Republicans might actually have a good reason to dislike him. As it is, they’ve had to strain pretty hard to paint him as a terrorist, un-American and a Muslim sympathizer, and have been laughed at for their faulty logic in doing so (terrorist fist jab, anyone?). But then, when you think about it, it makes sense. A president who seems to actually care about everyone, who sees everyone as equal and tries his best to extend those American values that, for so long, were denied to women and minorities, is vilified for 8 years. And the man who is supposed to make America "great" again calls women Miss Piggy.
USF student and “Miss Flat Chested” contestant Dominique Boyer summed it up best when she said.
“The president is supposed to be a representation of our nation, and if you’re blatantly discrediting or disenfranchising a particular group in our nation, then you can’t be the president,” she said.
Or at least, it shouldn’t be possible. But I suppose after eight years of having a so-called “traitor” in the White House, the bar has been lowered, apparently, for the right.
“Miss Piece of Ass,” Bridget Healy (which refers to Trump's comments about having a "young piece of ass" several years back) brought up Trump’s feelings about sexual harassment in the workplace, which reflect a profound misunderstanding of everyday Americans.
“If a woman is sexually harassed, she should just find a new career,” she said, echoing comments Trump made over the summer, which suggest the candidate has no idea how unrealistic that is for most American women and shifts the burden to the victim, not the perpetrator.
Racial and sexual insensitivity have been grounds for termination from jobs for a long time, and yet here is a man about to get the most powerful job in the country who routinely shows an inability to be anything close to diplomatic or (gasp!) sensitive. Voters are going to support someone who stands for them, and Donald Trump has somehow gotten within easy striking distance of becoming the leader of this country while burning every demographic bridge that doesn’t matter to his candidacy.
All in all, the beauty pageant was a grim reminder of the state of this country. Even if Trump doesn’t win the presidency, it will take a while longer to heal the divide between some Republicans and women, African Americans, Muslims, Democrats and even moderate Republicans.
But hey, if worse comes to worse, and the scourge of a Trump presidency descends upon us—the wars, the rolling back of decades of civil rights gains, I'm sure there's a way some on the right will pin that on Obama, too.
The deadline for voter registration in Florida is Tuesday, Oct. 11.
This article appears in Oct 6-13, 2016.