After watching Trump, Vance bully Zelensky, my mother’s lessons on manners come to mind | Opinion

Many of us have been taught from childhood that it is proper to respect the opinions of others, even when we don’t agree with them. We were also taught to be gracious to those who are guests in our home. To do so was just a matter of having good home training.

As I watched the meeting among President Trump, Vice President Vance and Ukrainian President Zelensky, I wondered if Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance ever had any “home training” or were taught any plain old good manners, as my mom and many other moms I knew while growing up, would say.

Watching the bullying way our president and vice president treated Zelensky, I shuttered with shame. Listening to the loud words spilling out of Trump’s mouth, totally drowning out anything Mr. Zelensky, I could almost hear my mom demanding of the president and vice president, “Where are your manners?”

Back in the day, good manners and respect for others – especially if they were guests – were taught together. I would like to believe the mothers of Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance would be both ashamed and appalled at their sons during that meeting. I want to think they would have given them a good tongue lashing for the ungentlemanly way they behaved to a guest of this country.

Just wistful musing. At this point in their lives, Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance don’t know how to have a straight talk with someone like Mr. Zelensky without bullying. They seem to think there is strength in bullying.

What happened to the dignified, diplomatic talks that we witnessed in 1987, when President Ronald Reagan, standing at the Brandenburg Gate, said to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

President Reagan was referring to the Berlin Wall, which had separated West Berlin from East Berlin since 1961.

President Reagan spoke firmly and with authority. And the wall got torn down.

Although I was a member of another party, and did not always agree with Mr. Reagan, that was one time I was proud to call him my president. President Reagan had acted and spoken with presidential authority. And yet, there wasn’t one bullying word that came from his mouth. He spoke without malice or disrespect.

The men who now occupy the Oval Office could learn a lot from Mr. Reagan’s speech.

As if the treatment from the president and vice president toward Mr. Zelensky was not enough, there was the question thrown at Mr. Zelensky about the way he was dressed for a visit to the Oval Office.

Here was a man who dressed to be in solidarity with the men and women who were giving their lives for freedom in the Ukraine. His dress code was a message to them. It said: I am with you.

Then I remembered seeing Elon Musk in the Oval Office dressed casually and wearing a baseball cap. To my recollection, nobody called him out saying he was disrespectful because of the way he was dressed.

These are serious times in our country. Now is not time for nitpicking. Yet there seems to be a mood hovering over our country where no one seems to want to call out the leaders, who are dragging down the country with their hateful ways of communicating.

As Americans, we must hold up the moral mirror to our leaders. I believe that if our leaders took a good look in the mirror and listened carefully to how they verbally handled issues that are crucial to our nation and the world, they would learn to lead without being bullies.

We Americans need to ask God to whisper in their ears how to obtain the wisdom and to effectively lead us.

I know some of you will disagree with me when I say we need to pray, as never before, for our leaders. But praying for them to do the right thing benefits us all. I believe that praying for our leaders to be strong but firm, not bullies, is the right thing to do. It will also help to regain some of the respect our nation has lost.

Perhaps because Mr. Trump has used the bullying tactic so often and found that it worked for him as a businessman, he feels that it will work for him as our president. Yet the bullying game is causing some of our allies to pull away from us.

Our leaders need to know that being kind is not a weakness. Rather, it is an asset. President George H. W. Bush knew that. Remember when he said his vision was for America to be a kinder, gentler nation?

Being kind doesn’t mean being weak. We can be strong and kind at the same time, and still get the work done. It is why America grew to be the great nation that it is today.

Our national leaders, starting with President Trump, would do well to read and put into practice these words from the Bible:

“A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1