A Paranoid President

Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, but three times is a pattern.

   Like it or not, Donald Trump has now been officially confirmed by the Electoral College as the next President of the United States and will be inaugurated come January 20.
   But there will still be widespread disagreement over his attitudes, policies and what he says and does. That's part of America; the right to disagree, as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution.
   Respect for the office of the Presidency is one thing. Respect for the person who occupies that office is quite another.
   The Republican Party has long criticized the policies and actions of President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and Trump himself has led the assault on the issue of Obama's citizenship. Their right to disagree and criticize was and is guaranteed by the First Amendment, but now that Trump heads for the White House, criticism of his own actions and policies will continue and likely accelerate.
   But Trump has shown a notoriously thin skin about disagreements or protests of any kind, and that leads to serious questions about what he will do once inaugurated.
   Reports have surfaced that he plans to bring his private security squad with him to the Presidency. Whether this would replace the Secret Service security force is another question, but any plan to use his own shows a strong likelihood to continue his past pattern of suppressing dissent of any kind.
   The Secret Service has been protecting Presidents and their families since 1865, and has been careful to keep that duty separate from any notion of preventing protests or suppressing disagreement. But throughout his campaign, Trump's personal security guards have screened rally attendees to keep out non-supporters, and they have forcefully ejected those even suspected of being potential protestors. Moreover, the candidate has encouraged violence against demonstrators at campaign rallies.
   Couple this pattern with plans to control seating arrangements for reporters in the White House briefing room, along with his refusal to hold an open press conference since the election, as well as his pattern of attacking news media even as he barricades reporters in a side corner at campaign rallies, and there emerges a pattern of trying to exert complete control over all things, up to and including restaurant reviews.
   An example of that last item was his early morning Twitter posting attacking Vanity Fair magazine for an unfavorable review of a restaurant in one of his hotels.
   A man who is about to become the elected leader of the world's most powerful nation should have more important things to worry about than restaurant reviews.
   But being thin skinned to near paranoid sensitivities demonstrates a clear and present danger to American principles.
   When the President of the United States is so fearful of criticism that he personally attacks a review of a restaurant he owns, then the nation can only wonder what his reaction might be to criticism by the leader of a foreign country, whether friendly or not.