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Trump is a bully. Don't cry, fight back.

Chris Brennan   Paste BN

The opening vibes of Donald Trump’s second term as president have been as easy to read as they have been alarming: “Don’t mess with us. Don’t stand in our way. Don’t resist.”

Three months later, the lesson we’ve learned is this: Mess with Trump. Stand in his way. Resist.

Anyone who has ever faced down a schoolyard bully knows the bully’s strongest asset is fear, the anxiety of taking a beating if you stand up. And anyone who has ever punched a bully in the nose knows they bleed like the rest of us, and usually cry harder as the fear evaporates.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills stood up to Trump in his own playground – the White House – in February when he singled her out during a gathering of the National Governors Association and threatened her state during one of his many diatribes about transgender athletes.

Mills said Maine would follow state and federal law on the issue, which was not the kind of cowering Trump was looking for. “See you in court,” she promised Trump, enraging him.

Trump retaliated by having the U.S. Department of Agriculture withhold funding for Maine programs that address food insecurity. Maine sued in federal court. And the Trump administration backed down last week.

Trump isn’t just sparring with states. His administration has targeted law firms that represent clients he doesn’t like. And he has picked ridiculous fights with allies like Canada, claiming repeatedly that America will absorb that country as our “51st state.”

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One of the law firms targeted in March by Trump, Perkins Cole, fought back in court and won last week. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell used her 102-page order in the case to not just knock Trump for his ridiculous overreach, but to also shame law firms that capitulated to Trump after similarly unjust attacks.

“If the founding history of this country is any guide, those who stood up in court to vindicate constitutional rights and, by doing so, served, to promote the rule of law, will be models lauded when this period of American history is written,” wrote Howell in a footnote that reverberated through the legal community.

Trump’s bullying doesn’t just wither in court. Sometimes it goes all flappy and flaccid right there in the White House, like the meeting Trump held in the Oval Office this week with Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney.

Trump actually tried to take credit for Carney’s victory in an election late last month, claiming, “I think I was probably the greatest thing that happened to him.” That’s true, in the sense that Canadians now despise Trump and elected Carney to stand up to him.

And that’s just what Carney did, sitting in the Oval Office, telling Trump, Canada “is not for sale” now or ever. Trump tried to roll with it, telling Carney, “Never say never.” 

But Carney would not back down. And Trump had to hear it in his own house.

There’s a lesson in that for anyone who chafes at Trump’s bullying tactics. Don’t wail and lament. Stand up. Fight back. Knock the bully down.

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