Robert Reich wrote an interesting column recently about when he was in elementary school (or maybe middle school) and was bullied continually. As you may know, Reich, the former Secretary of the Labor under Bill Clinton, is only 4′ 11″ tall. So, it isn’t surprising that he was a regular target of bullies while he was growing up (so to speak).

He did not go into detail as to how he was bullied, but he said something very interesting in that he did have defenders and protectors. One of them, he said, was a young man named Michael Schwerner.

Reich went on to write that in 1964, as we all may recall, Schwerner was killed (along with two other young men) in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where he had gone as a representative of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to help register Blacks to vote. Reich says that Schwerner’s death, because he had memories of his selflessness in helping to protecct him, changed his entire outlook on life, and set him on the path that he is still on today at age 79.

Let me digress a minute: Robert Reich was born in 1946. Schwerner was 7 years older, born in 1939. In reading Reich’s essay, I had assumed that Schwerner was a classmate of Reich’s, which he clearly was not. So, it must have been Schwerner, as a teenager, protecting Reich, not Schwerner as a contemporary. Not that this changes the moral of the story. It just gives it a slightly different slant.

Reich went on and talked about bullying today, and about Donald Trump, as the world’s biggest bully, saying that everything he does as president (and most of the things he did before he became a politician) were based on bullying, on threatening people with dire consequences, and demonstrating that he had both the ability and willingness to bring about these dire consequences, unless they did his bidding. Trump does this with his actions, and he does it with his speech, and so far he has been successful with both.

The concern goes beyond what Trump is doing to the United States by his politics. It goes to what he is doing to the upcoming generations of Americans by making bullying (verbal and otherwise) mainstream and acceptable.

Reich is, of course, 100% correct. And the only way counter Trump’s success, in my opinion, is to crush him with a resounding defeat. The “crime doesn’t pay” argument. And it is not clear that we will, or that we can, do this.

Two examples of Trump’s bullying are just now entering the news. One is the Christmas Day strikes on northern Nigeria (WWJD? was not apparently a question he asked himself). We don’t yet know the actual results of these strikes, which were apparently against ISIS members or “camps” and allegedly (and maybe factually) because of ISIS’ treatment of Christians in Nigeria. In addition, our government has stated that these attacks were made with the approval of, and with the support of, the Nigerian government.

Well, Trump has talked about the treatment of Christians in Nigeria for some time now. Nigeria, believe it or not, about the size of Montana, has almost 250,000,000, making it the 6th most populated country in the world. Its population is split among Muslims and Christians, with the northern part of the country (where ISIS apparently operates) is primarily Muslim. The victims of violence in the north include Christians, for sure, but also Muslims who are not supportive of ISIS. The government of Nigeria, which Trump has for some time accused of being anti-Christian, does not appear to be. Nigeria’s current president is Muslim, but the presidency has had members of both religions over the years. It is officially secular.

A few months ago, Trump threatened to attack Nigeria and threatened to end all financial and other relationships with the country. Now, he has stopped talking about cutting off economic relationships with the country, and claimed that the Nigerian government is supportive of American war planes and drones bombing their country. I can’t believe that Nigerian government would welcome this American intrusion unless it was bullied to do so, and I am sure this is what was done.

Leaving Nigeria aside, another example of Trump’s bullying is in his treatment of those who have migrated to or immigrated to this country (and who are not White, by the way). His direction of and blessing of ICE’s extraordinarily rude and violent ways is a prime example of bullying in action. And his current proposal to purchase a number of large warehouses around the country and turn them into indoor concentration camps for those whom ICE rounds up, is again an example of Trump the bully.

They say that, in order to stop a bully, you must stand up to him. We clearly need more Americans who are willing to do this. The political concentration now seems focused on the economy. The shared wisdom is that if the Trump economy is bad, MAGA is dead, but if the Trump economy turns out to be good, MAGA will be around for some time. This may be true, but economic strength ebbs and flows. If the economy is bad today, it might be good tomorrow.

The moral composition of American citizens is a different story. If it is lowered to the level of Donald Trump, whether or not our economy is strong, we will have failed as a country. To me, our view of the world and of the United States’ place in that world, are more important than the daily condition of the economy.

Now, you can say, I guess: Art, you are retired, you had a successful career; if you had to worry about your rent money or your next meal, you would feel differently.

Maybe so. But, if so, I would be looking at things in a very short sighted manner. We, as a country, cannot afford to do that.