The Rank Double Standard in Trump and Biden’s Trash Talk

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-rank-double-standards-in-trump-and-bidens-trash-talk/

His running mate JD Vance, who just days ago told people to “stop getting so offended” over the rally (“I’m just — I’m so over it,” he continued) tweeted of Biden’s comments: This is disgusting. Kamala Harris and her boss Joe Biden are attacking half of the country. There’s no excuse for this. I hope Americans reject it.”

But let’s not forget that Donald Trump does and says a lot worse than “garbage.” His rhetoric routinely pings from the offensive to the threatening to the violent. He calls liberals Marxists and Communists. He has mocked people with disabilities, referred to women who challenge him as dogs, called Mexicans rapists, called immigrants vermin, and said they are “poisoning the blood of the country.”

He has threatened election officials with prosecution, and he routinely says his opponents should be killed. On Thursday night, Trump said that former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney should be shot (he had previously said she and former president Barack Obama should be tried in televised military tribunals). He has suggested Gen. Mark Milley, his former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, be executed; those who worked for him have said that he also talked about executing drug dealers, shoplifters, journalists, and members of his own administration who leaked information to the media.

The stereotype of every childhood bully is that they can dish it out but they can’t take it. Trump is a lifelong bully, and his base seems to genuinely relish his efforts to torment those who challenge him, or those who he sees as weak. He’s also one of the most thin-skinned people to ever enter politics. He believes a double standard should apply: He gets to demean and insult whoever he pleases in the crudest possible terms, but if the tables turn on him, well, that’s not fair.