It’s undignified to mock @realDonaldTrump’s health issues. That’s off limits. Let’s focus on issues. Hope you recover, Mr. President.
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) June 15, 2020
Focus on issues?
Health (mental and physical) is an issue.
As for the propriety of mockery, it is wrong all things being equal. But in this case, all things are not equal, not by a long shot.
This is a man who has been conveying a false image of himself for years. And throughout his presidency, he has actively been seeking to subvert democratic norms starting with his request for Russia to intervene in an election to get Clinton’s emails, to threatening to jail Clinton and Obama, to attempting to pressure Pres. Zelensky to produce oppo-research on Biden, to creating skepticism about mail-in voting, to praising dictators like President Xi, to repeatedly attacking the free press as the “enemy of the people”, to making false and discredited claims about election fraud. The list goes on and on.
When you point out that he’s really just a fat, illiterate, frail old man, you aren’t “being mean.” Rather, you’re showing that the image he has attempted to cultivate in order to extend his own power is a false one. Like any bully, he is a weakling inside, and it is appropriate to use tools like sarcasm and satire to point this out.
