The Bully

Although he presented himself as an upstanding student, he was, in fact, a terrible bare-knuckled bully. And he had assembled around himself a number of like-minded aggressive poltroons … so many, in fact, that they once outnumbered their schoolyard victims. They would confiscate from the meek their lunch money or sift through any unhidden lunch bags for the more luscious items. They forced many of the smarter students to do their homework and to keep their quizzes and test uncovered so that they were easily copied. They brewed up numerous hazing rituals whose only purpose was the humiliation of their victims. Yet, the bully and most of his cronies regularly attended Sunday school, dressed fairly well, went through the motions of community outreach (volunteering at food pantries, taking their pets to senior centers, etc.) and appeared to most adults to be perfect teenagers. They were even elected, generally out of fear or naïveté, to most of the student government offices.

Even the school administration and the local constabulary were not really clued into the severity of the trouble-making by this group of bad actors. Yes, there were occasional complaints, but they were mostly ignored by higher-ups as being sour grapes. Didn’t these kids get good grades, often run things, and volunteer in the community? Finally, like in the movie, A Christmas Story, one of their perennial victims couldn’t take it any more and snapped. When the number-one bully threw a snowball hitting him right in the face, he went wild, attacking the bully with arms flailing and spittle spewing from his bleeding lip. He wailed on the bully. He quickly had him pinned down and mewling for help. Even this bully’s compatriots seemed reluctant to aid him because this one act of rebellion had quickly spread to the rest of their erstwhile victims. They had been transformed into a posse standing up to this outlaw gang. They even shouted down the bullies and dared them to act to help their leader.

And the next day, this very same bully went to the school principal and unashamedly ask that the school start a program to stop such violence as he was subjected to the previous day. He also suggested, with his halo shining brightly if a bit askew, that yesterday’s posse be castigated for their ganging up on his pals and that they be punished for their hate speech. That afternoon the principal called an assembly of the entire student body and the now angelic bully gave a very moving talk about how everyone should be less hostile to one another and now sit together in classes and school assemblies. Most of the unclued-in students cheered and did the wave

If you haven’t already guessed it, the above vignette is an allegory for something much bigger that is happening today on the U.S. political scene. Can you guess what it is?