Donald Trump says stupid, bigoted, ignorant things because he’s a boss.
A bad boss.
On a résumé, I’d say “reporter,” but, if I were honest, I’d put down my occupation as “employee,” because everything else is just Photoshop.
Middle to bottom of the barrel, that’s been me this lifetime. I’ve propped up the stock price in dozens of ways. I’ve done it with a broom, a computer and with my own aching back. The people at the top never see me and thank God, because I am mutinous and unclean in my speech.
But I have spoken often to the other bosses, the little ones. Shift bosses and restaurant managers and editors and Eddie — good old Eddie — out on the loading dock.
Eddie was a born-again Christian of the most annoying kind, a man who’d turned his high school education loose on the Bible and come back with enough misunderstanding to fill Noah’s Ark.
And he told it all to me, on the third shift, while I was sucking coffee in the break room.
“I didn’t know that was in the Bible,” I’d say to Eddie while he explained how the Jews needed to be in Israel so Jesus could come again.
Yeah. Old Eddie, who ruined at least a third of my breaks with holy babble from God.
And Tom, who loved to tell me about his sex life with his wife.
“So, last night, we’re in bed,” Tom would start and I’d stand behind the bar, washing glasses and listen to his wormy little couplings, nodding appreciatively every so often.
“Thereyago,” I’d say.
The bosses who were always wrong, and I mean every time, and who sent me out to do the wrong thing backwards.
“I’ll get right on that,” I’d say.
Oh, you learn, you who do not own any stock in the company, you learn the way I learned.
Do it backwards, do it sideways, do it upside down and listen to the boss’ whack job political theories with a big-as-a-barn-door smile.
Trump comes right out of that world, the world of the solid color tie and infallibility. Only the lawyers can ever really tell you you’re wrong, and you can always get new lawyers. The next bunch will tell you you’re right.
You can say anything because you can fire anyone. In America, where we print your job high up in your obituary, that’s all that counts.
Every bad boss has his/her followers, too, those prime little underlings who know they can become assistant managers if they’ll just agree louder than anyone else.
Trump’s good theater, but he’s a bad boss.
Worst of all, he’s forgotten who does the hiring on this job.
Marc Munroe Dion is a nationally syndicated columnist. Dion’s latest book, “Marc Dion: Volume I” is a collection of his best columns for 2014 and is available for Nook and Kindle.