usatoday | Donald Trump says he's not a bully and, clinically, he may be right.
On
Wednesday, Trump was again defending himself following the latest in a
series of spats with network television personalities — this time with
Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, who Trump's security detail booted from a
news conference the previous night in Iowa.
"I am not a bully,'' the real estate magnate and Republican presidential candidate said on the TODAY show.
Americans may describe the billionaire businessman's behavior in many
ways, but psychologists and experts told USA TODAY that textbook
bullying shouldn't be one of them. The greater challenge, the bullying
experts say, is explaining the reasons for Trump's popularity in a
culture that is supposed to frown on naked aggression.
"Bullying
is the repeated, intentional harm of another person who has less power
than you do,'' said Dewey Cornell, a forensic psychologist and bullying
expert at the University of Virginia.
"If it’s him and Rosie O’Donnell going at each other, they may have comparable power,'' he said.
Patti McDougall,
associate professor of psychology at the University of Saskatchewan
echoed that, saying "bullying does not happen when you’ve got two equals
in a fight.''
Most of Trump's targets — from prominent media
figures like Ramos and Fox News's Megyn Kelly to fellow presidential
candidates — have societal power in their own right.
Trump has
singled out Kelly, one of the nation's most-watched cable news hosts,
ever since she pointedly questioned him during a Fox News
debate. He later insinuated she was menstruating at the time and, since
then, he's hurled insults at her, including retweeting a message on
Twitter that called her a "bimbo."
The attacks became too much for Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes, who on Tuesday called on Trump to apologize.
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