According to the dictionary, “The height of hypocrisy” is an “idiomatic expression used to emphasize an action or statement that demonstrates the most extreme form of hypocrisy.”
Recently, with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman at his side, Mr. Trump reprimanded ABC correspondent Mary Bruce after she asked a question concerning the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents. Before she completed the question, Trump interrupted to ask who she was with. When she responded, “I’m with ABC News, sir,” Trump said, “Fake news,” calling ABC “one of the worst in the business.” He stated, “You don’t have to embarrass our guests.”
However, in March of this year when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited in the Oval Office, he was ambushed by Trump and Vance mocking and humiliating him before the television media and telling him that he was not grateful enough for the United States’ help. When South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the White House in May, Trump stated false claims about White genocide in South Africa and then showed videos that supposedly supported his false claims. Both the South African agriculture minister John Steenhuisen and South Africa’s richest man Johann Rupert, who are White South Africans, rebutted Trump’s false claims. In fact, Whites, who make up about 7 percent of the South African population, account for 70 percent of commercial farmland ownership. It is evident that Trump is the person who embarrasses White House guests.
Trump consistently calls journalists and his political enemies names to denigrate and vilify them. Recently, he has called a female journalist “piggy” and former supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene, Marjorie “Traitor” Greene. Six Democratic Congresspeople who have served our country admirably in our armed forces (which Trump never did) made a video reminding our service people that their oath is to the Constitution and they did not have to follow “illegal orders.” Trump called what they did “seditious behavior, punishable by death,” and in reposts, Trump stated the Democrats should be hanged, the actions were an insurrection, and they should be indicted. He now has the Pentagon investigating one of those Democrats, Senator Mark Kelly, a retired U.S. Navy fighter pilot and NASA astronaut. Trump calls everyone names; however, when late night talk show hosts Steven Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers make jokes at Trump’s expense as they have for other presidents and public figures, Trump calls for them to be fired.
Trump has brought hypocrisy to new levels. As Alan Dershowitz said, “Hypocrisy is not a way of getting back to the moral high ground. Pretending you’re moral, saying you’re moral is not the same as acting morally.”
This quote by Michael Shellenberger appears to explain Trump’s use of hypocrisy: “Hypocrisy is the ultimate power move. It is a way of demonstrating that one plays by a different set of rules from the ones adhered to by common people.”
Trump must be taught that the rule of law and the rules of morality are for all. He is not exempt.