A Very Unpresidential Finger
By Bob Gaydos
Trump flipping the bird at a factory worker.
As an old tabloid journalist, I’m a fan of short headlines that tell the story without beating around the bush. One of the most famous was a Daily News front page from 50 years ago that screamed: “Ford to New York: Drop Dead!”
President Gerald Ford had refused to help the city out of some financial difficulties and the city’s leading morning daily had made the message clear.
A few days back, another story involving a president spurred a headline in my tabloid-programmed brain: Ford to factory worker: Shut up!
No, you never saw it.
The president was Trump and the Ford in this case was the automaker that was one of the proud founders of the American industrial empire, Ford Motor Company.
As you’ve undoubtedly learned via social media by now, as Trump was touring a Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan, posing for pictures and making smiling men in suits happy, a worker called out “Pedophile protector!” at the man who is protecting pedophiles by still refusing to release the full Epstein files as Congress specifically voted.
Trump, with the emotional maturity of a not very bright 12-year-old boy, responded by saying “F*#k You!” twice and giving the man the middle finger. Crude. The kind of stuff that makes an impression on the schoolyard, but is not especially presidential and certainly not dignified. Like accepting a Nobel Peace Prize that doesn’t belong to you, as I wrote about the other day. At least he’s consistent.
Well, the press managed to cover the story, carefully, and Ford, which sponsored the visit by Trump without coordinating with the United Autoworkers Union, responded by suspending the worker, TJ Sabula.
Social media covered the story much more directly, noting the American citizen expressing his free speech, the American president reacting boorishly, the union saying free speech is supposed to be protected and, eventually, lawyers saying that protection unfortunately doesn’t apply to private employers, but rather to the government.
A Go Fund Me site started for Sabula, who has not regretted his remark, has reportedly raised more than half a million dollars for him already, which tells you where America stands on speaking truth to power. The Ford Company, which obviously invited Trump to flatter him and work out some deal, is still mum on further action on Sabula. The unredacted Epstein files have still not been released, although the congressionally set deadline was last December 19. The White House defended Trump’s reactions as “appropriate.”
And, Trump has never denied the charge hurled at him on the factory floor: Pedophile protector! He just hurled an F-bomb — twice — and hoisted an arthritic middle finger, demonstrating once again to the world the embarrassment that he and his cowardly enablers in the Republican Party have inflicted on this once-proud nation.
Trump to America: Drop Dead!
Tags: crude, Epstein, factory, Finger, Ford, obscenity, pedophile, Savula, social media, trump
