Donald Trump, gloating and almost giddy at the passing of opponents, though inappropriate for someone of his stature and rank, merely foreshadows the groundswell of voices after his ultimate demise. Most of us, however, would rather see him live long enough to spend several of his final years incarcerated in prison after being convicted of multiple criminal offenses.

Fond farewells and tributes circulated following the death of Robert Mueller at age 81, the longtime FBI director and former special counsel who investigated possible Russian interference favoring Trump’s presidential election in 2016.

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Donald Trump, however, took to his Truth Social link on March 21, writing: “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

Mueller’s special counsel team concluded that while they could not prosecute Trump based on the evidence of Russian interference that they found, they could not, nonetheless, exonerate Russia and the Trump campaign.

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Obviously, regarding the death of his perceived opponents, Trump belongs to the Bette Davis School of Commemorations. When Joan Crawford died, Davis’ formidable rival, Bette Davis, said: “You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good… Joan Crawford is dead. Good.”

I subscribe to the wisdom of Oscar Wilde when I consider Trump’s death: “Some [people] improve the world only by leaving it.”

Donald Trump has always done a stellar job in his role of fifth-grade schoolyard bully.

He initially refused to lower the White House flag to half-staff following the death of Sen. John McCain, and he argued that McCain was not an American military hero “because he was captured” and interned by the North Vietnamese. And he is reported to have called fallen military personnel “suckers and losers.”

He refers to California Gov. Gavin Newsom as “Gavin Newscum.” He frequently calls President Joe Biden “sleepy Joe” and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “crooked Hillary.”

Trump’s misogynistic comments have become infamous. In an interview with Esquire in 1991, he quipped: “You know, it doesn’t really matter what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of [expletive].”

Trump wrote of New York Times columnist Gail Collins that she had the “face of a dog.”

He referred to Rosie O’Donnell as a “fat pig” and “animal,” and ranted against her on Entertainment Tonight: “Rosie O’Donnell is disgusting—both inside and out. If you take a look at her, she’s a slob. How does she even get on television?… If I were running The View, I’d fire Rosie. I’d look her right in that fat, ugly face of hers and say, ‘Rosie, you’re fired.’ We’re all a little chubby but Rosie’s just worse than most of us. But it’s not the chubbiness—Rosie is a very unattractive person, both inside and out….”

After Fox Channel reporter Megyn Kelly asked Trump about his negative reference to women, Trump called Kelly “a bimbo” in a tweet and, during an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon, implied that Kelly was having her period during the debate.

“You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her… wherever….”

In Trump’s “Agenda47” platform in 2024, he swore to outlaw gender-affirming care for trans youth, and falsely branded such medical care as “mutilation” and “mutation.”

In addition, he vowed to terminate trans-affirming doctors from Medicare and Medicaid. Trump also announced that he wants Congress to pass a bill outlawing “men in women’s sports.”

Trump has banned trans people from serving in the U.S. military under the false claim of excessive health costs: “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”

Trump’s insensitivity and complete lack of empathy rival that of any historical figure, but the image I simply cannot extricate from my consciousness is Trump’s inhuman mockery at a campaign rally of a New York Times reporter, Serge Kovaleski, who has a congenital joint condition.

Trump certainly has been extremely toxic when referring to people coming into the United States from Mexico and other countries throughout Latin America, for example: “The US has become a dumping ground for everyone else’s problems,” he said. “[Mexico is] sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and they’re rapists.”

Speaking to a crowd during his “Make America Great Again Rally” on August 25, 2015, in Dubuque, Iowa, Trump delivered a mocking impression of Asian business people in broken English, “They say, ‘We want deal!’” to the laughter from his audience. His offensive comment came one day after he stressed that Chinese President Xi Jinping deserves a McDonald’s hamburger rather than a formal White House state dinner during his planned visit to the U.S.

Donald Trump denigrates immigrants from what he calls “s**thole countries.”

“I’ve also announced a permanent pause on Third World migration, including from hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia, and many other countries,” he said. “Our country was going to hell. And we had a meeting, and I say, ‘Why is it we only take people from s**thole countries, right?’ Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden, just a few? Let us have a few from Denmark. Do you mind sending us a few people? Do you mind?”

“We always take people from Somalia, places that are a disaster, right?” Trump argued at a rally in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania. “Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime. The only thing they’re good at is going after ships.”

Trump argued that children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants, whom Trump pejoratively referred to as so-called “anchor babies,” should lose their citizenship status.

Basically, Trump asserts that there are only two genders and trans women are nothing more than men in skirts; that immigrants are gang members, killers, and psychopaths, and that they eat cats and dogs.

We are increasingly seeing what has come to be known as “The Trump Effect,” in which, through Donald’s derisive and abusive words and actions, many young people mirror his behavior and react similarly against their peers.

We must not view bullying and harassment as simply youth problems and behaviors, but rather, investigate the contexts in which bullying “trickles down” from the larger society and is reproduced within the schools. Young people, through the process of social learning, often acquire bullying and harassing attitudes and behaviors, and they also often learn the socially sanctioned targets for their aggression.

Donald Trump demonstrates every day in both words and actions that he is totally disqualified to serve as the president of the United States of America.

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