Permission to be a Bully

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Thirty percent of American adults suffer abusive conduct at work. This affects 76.3 million workers. According to ongoing surveys taken by the Workplace Bullying Institute, bullying in the American workplace is up 11% since 2017.

The 2017 survey was taken during Donald Trump’s first year in the presidency. At that time leadership experts coined the phrase “the Trump effect” to describe how a widespread increase in bad workplace behavior was stifling teamwork, dampening morale, and hurting productivity.

It was reported that there was an increased willingness for employees to engage in coarse and unethical behaviors such as swearing, negative criticism, lying, and making promises with no intention of keeping them.

Negative role models

Trump is serving as a negative role model. They see his behavior, they see that it worked, it was effective, and use that as a model.

Seth Spain

The 2024 survey shows that things have gotten worse. Americans have become ruder, cruder, meaner, whinier, and more self-focused.

It has become more challenging for HR people to deal with some of the interpersonal behaviors that have come out.

We’ve had to do a lot more… talking to employees about the fact that the U.S. government… in Washington, D.C., does not set the standard for professional behavior in the workplace.

Mike Letizia

There has been a long line of lousy role models that have brought us to this terrible place. I would include: Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mitch McConnell, and Ron DeSantis.

But, of course, the master role model for every bully in America, from the Proud Boys, to the KKK, to the Republicans in Congress, is Donald J. Trump.

Excuse to indulge ourselves

Trump gives people an excuse to indulge in, and justify, their worst behaviors. He demonstrates how one can get away with selfishness, bullying, stealing, and lying by consistently gaslighting, denying the truth, and attacking anyone who points out what he is doing.

People love him for this. They, too, want to be selfish and lazy and mean — and get away with it. Trump is popular because people wish they could be just like him.

This is why, if we elect Trump as President again, God will not save us from the destruction that will follow. Just as has happened before, in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Book of Mormon, the people, especially the members of the Church, will have ignored the warnings of the scriptures and will have brought the calamities upon ourselves.

Sources:
Martha C. White, “Donald Trump is Ruining Workplace Morale,” NBCNews, August 7, 2017.
— “2021 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey” (Results Summary), Workplace Bullying Institute, 2021.
Michael Gerhardt, “Trump’s Constitutional Bullying is a Threat to Our Democratic Safeguards,” Time, February 11, 2024.

3 thoughts on “Permission to be a Bully”

  1. “What manner of men ought ye to be. Even as I AM.” A much better role model. The opposite of our model of how power and influence ought to be enacted, as expressed in D&C 121:40-45 would be something like this:

    “Power or influence can be maintained by by coercion, impatience, brutality, pride, and feigned love.
    By transactional interactions, and by using rhetoric effectively and saying whatever flatters enough people of the right sort to gain and keep a following, and by projecting our own guilt onto other people, we can paint them as embodying all corruption, and serve our own agenda and ambition at all times.

    Reproving constantly and without concern for facts, when moved upon by pride and vanity and ambition, and then afterwards showing an increase of love towards the flag and your allies, that we may be united against whomever we decide is an enemy, whomever we designate as scapegoat, to blame for all our problems and distract attention from our shortcomings,

    That people may know better than to criticize or cross you for fear of what will happen to them

    Let thy bowels be full of charity to your allies, plot revenge upon your enemies, and let ambition and pride garnish thy thoughts unceasingly, and then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of adoring crowds and sycophants.”

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