Laughing at a Bully

One day quite a few years ago, I was driving home from work and turned onto my street—a fairly narrow city street lined with parked cars on both sides. A half block from my house, two cars were coming at me from the opposite direction. The first car passed by easily and without incident. The second car, however, seemed to be more afraid of hitting the parked cars than of hitting me. He was driving on my side of the road. As he slowly approached, I cringed, knowing we were too close to each other. With a thud, our side-view mirrors collided.

I pulled forward a car length, put the car in park, and got out to see if there was any damage. The other driver did the same.

After examining my car, I asked the other driver if his car was OK. He turned to me and quickly became animated, accusing me of hitting him and admonishing me to watch where I was going. I was taken aback. Was this guy serious? Did he really think I was to blame?

Our cars were in the same positions on the road as when we made contact. It was obvious that he was on the wrong side of the road, which I pointed out to him, along with the fact that the car in front of him had easily passed me without contact.

He refused to accept fault. Instead he threatened me. “I will come to your house and fuck you up,” he said.

My natural response to his threat was simple. I laughed. I laughed and laughed and laughed, and laughed some more. I didn’t do it intentionally. It was not purposeful or thought out. It was a simple, natural reaction—I found his threats so ridiculous that the situation seemed to me to be nothing but hilarious. I could not keep myself from laughing at him.

And it worked. My laughter shut him up. Maybe he thought I was crazy, or perhaps he was intimidated by my laughter. Either way, he quickly got back into his car and drove off. My laughter ended the conflict, and I came out on top.

I mention this anecdote, because I believe that laughter is one of the best ways to deal with bullies, idiots, and assholes who are obviously wrong. In other words, it’s one of the best ways to deal with our President. And already, after just three weeks, there is evidence that our laughter at this dimwitted bully of a man is working. The fact that the president bothers to criticize Saturday Night Live’s depiction of him and his staff is evidence enough that he is bothered by our laughter. We need to keep it up.

Laughing at Trump is the best weapon we have against him. Laughing at Trump not only diminishes him in the eyes of the American public, it diminishes him in his own eyes. If there’s one thing I know about bullies and narcissists (of which Trump most certainly is one), it is this—they are the most deeply insecure people in the world, in spite of (or because of) their bravado. And when we laugh at them, we win.

Keep laughing America. Keep laughing.

-MM-

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