We’ve all put up with bullies at times. As the proverbial 90-pound weakling in high school, I probably encountered more than my share.
Bullies come in many forms. There were the big fat kids in elementary school; the teens larger than most of their classmates in high school. They often shared common traits. They may have been bad students or seemed stupid or were unlucky in love.
But they were tough.
Until somebody tougher came along.
In adulthood, I’ve seen corporate officials intimidate and harass underlings. Those bullies were usually the first to grovel in the presence of their superiors.
At the Legislature, I’ve seen a few lawmakers use their lofty status at the dais during committee meetings as they bully and shout down Utahns trying to testify on a side of an issue with which those legislators disagree.
I’ve seen a few try to humiliate witnesses, knowing they have the power to shut off the microphones of those they sought to debase.
And those legislators didn’t like it when they were called out for it.
When that has happened, some have complained to an editor; some to a publisher.
Because bullies, in the end, are cowards.
If they have the upper hand in numbers, size, strength or position, they are tough, they are formidable, they are imposing.
When the advantage is taken away, they quiver, they cower, they complain.
We saw that bully/coward character on full display this past week after white supremacists descended on Charlottesville, Va.,, for a march and rally to protest that city’s decision to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee, a symbol of Southern secession.
They came with torches, with shields, with weapons. When they were met by counterprotesters, they fought in the streets — as long as they had the edge. Whenever that advantage wavered, they expected the police to protect them. One of them took matters too far, driving a car through a crowd, killing one woman and injuring others.
Since then, the bullies have made excuses. They have tried to paints themselves as victims.
When white supremacist Christopher Cantwell was featured in a “Vice News Tonight” documentary about the Charlottesville protest, he was defiant. He told an interviewer as he marched along, shirtless, that his group is ready to resort to violence if necessary.
“We’ll kill these f...ing people if we have to,” he declared.
A few days later, when he learned there was a warrant for his arrest in Charlottesville, he posted a response on a video that went to YouTube, speaking directly to the camera and crying like a baby.
He didn’t do anything wrong, sniff, sniff, sniff. His group got a permit. His group wasn’t violent. The other people were violent, sniff, sniff sniff.
When Unite the Right rally organizer Jason Kessler held a news conference denying any blame for the violence that killed the woman and injured more, he probably didn’t expect the response he got. Keller pointed at police, saying they didn’t do enough to quell the escalating confrontations. When several counterdemonstrators ran toward the podium, Kessler, true to the character of a bully, darted off.
As he fled, he was tackled by a woman. He had to be saved by the very police he had verbally pilloried a few minutes earlier.
Many of the torch-wielding white supremacists were shocked to discover that internet vigilantes captured them on cellphone videos as they spewed their hate and posted them for all to see.
Their neighbors, co-workers and family members saw them online and publicly identified them.
Sniff, sniff, sniff.
We now have a bully in the White House who is quick to savage any foe — “Lyin’ Ted,” “Little Marco,” “Low Energy Jed,” “Crooked Hillary” — while safely placed before an adoring crowd with enough security guards to quickly remove any taunters, or via the safety of remote tweets.
He doesn’t have the guts to put the blame for the violence where it belongs — on the white supremacists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan adherents, who apparently make up part of his political base.