A tiny yet significant item – Trump gives the finger to the woman astronaut who had the audacity to correct (in a tactful way) his assertion that she and her colleague were the first women ever to work outside the space station.
A tiny yet significant item – Trump gives the finger to the woman astronaut who had the audacity to correct (in a tactful way) his assertion that she and her colleague were the first women ever to work outside the space station.
Comments
11 responses to “While Ivanka nods like a wind-up doll”
Is Mike Pence allowed to be with so many women who aren’t his wife?
I think too much is being made of this, in all fairness. Myself, I habitually type texts with my middle finger. I don’t know why that is the most comfortable for me, but it is. It doesn’t mean I’m saying F U with every text.
Much as I detest Trump, I’m also on the fence about this one. I had a colleague who used to push his glasses up doing that. When I asked him if he was intentionally making that gesture he was really shocked. He did it, he explained, because that was how his father had always done it. Having met his father I could well believe the old man was doing it intentionally as a sly ‘up yours’ to the world. My colleague, I’m certain it was just a gestural habit. To his credit I never saw him do it again. Trump I’m sure would do it intentionally for ever after if challenged.
People on the right used to say this about Obama.
I think in both cases it’s unlikely to be meant as anything. In this case I think Trump’s probably too slow-witted to react that quickly.
Oh all riiiight, I’m not completely convinced by it either. But still.
To be clear, I think it’s a crass gesture to make, even without intent.
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
No, sir. I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir.
I’m not so sure that it wasn’t deliberate. Trump has many habitual little gestures and movements – the finger pinch, the ‘accordion’ arms, the head tilt-and-turn, etc. – and he does often smooth his hair, but not normally using just an extended middle finger.
For such a creature of habit, any gesticulation that is not a part of his usual repertoire has a reasonably good chance of being deliberate, but when a person who hates being corrected – even more so when it’s a woman correcting him – and who is famously boorish, rude, and infantile in his reactions to things he doesn’t like uses such a gesture immediately after having had a woman point out his error (and so publically, too), I’d say that the probability of it being deliberate is very close to one.
Rob @3,
Yeah, my father used to use his middle finger to point at the item on the menu he wanted to order. Actually, maybe he still does, though I tried to break him of the habit.
His gestures. Don’t get me started on his gestures. I watched several minutes of his Cabinet meeting rant yesterday and the gestures were TORTURE – they’re constant and obtrusive and completely wack – they drive me CRAZY. It wasn’t just the pinch and accordion, there was variety by way of chops and half-pinches and stalled accordions and endless other random shit. He should be handcuffed before starting to talk.