The proper response to name calling, and the proper time to use name calling, too.
A reader recently called me a hypocrite.
My response:
List as many examples as possible of my hypocrisy in everyday life and let hm know that his name calling MEANS NOTHING TO ME.
In metaphorical terms, this amounts to taking the rhetorical knife that your opponent is using to stab you and stabbing yourself instead. In doing so, you demonstrate to your opponent that their knife is useless. A meaningless, pathetic weapon that cannot harm you.
This is a strategy that I often use to combat name-calling. Last week another reader called me an idiot. I quickly rattled off a dozen acts of stupidity that I had committed this year and assured him that I was a lot more than just an idiot. I was a moron of the highest order.
The person’s response?
I’m still waiting for one.
A few years ago, when a person was angry with me for failing to return her calls and follow-up on some much needed paperwork, I criticized myself so viciously that she ended our phone call by assuring me of how wonderful I am.
Elysha thought that in this case, I was being overly manipulative.
I was. Intentionally.
Just remember:
People who resort to name-calling are almost always unable, ill equipped, or too stupid to engage in actual, rhetorical combat. Just look at Trump, who referred to a reporter last week as a “light weight.”
Trump couldn’t answer the reporter’s question because he had no real answer, so instead, he called the reporter a name. Had this not happened in the midst of a press conference, the reporter could’ve responded with, “You’re right! I cry at the end of movies. I’m afraid of spiders. And I really can’t drink more than two glasses of wine without falling asleep. Total lightweight!”
Take that pathetic, Presidential knife and stab, stab, stab yourself. Render it useless to the petulant man-child who will be running the country for another 44 days.
And yes, I know. I just called Trump a petulant man-child. I engaged in a little name-calling myself. But here’s the other important thing about name-calling:
For someone like Trump, who insults people constantly and assigns childish nicknames to his enemies, the rhetorical, name calling knife is razor sharp. For someone who uses name-calling as one of their primary weapons of verbal combat, name-calling is lethal.
If anyone ever referred to Trump as a petulant man-child to his face (and I will if ever given the chance), he would lose his mind.
If done in a public setting, his head might explode.
In fact, Trump is the first President to refuse to attend the White House correspondent’s dinner, primarily because it’s tradition for the host to roast the President. Trump can’t stand listening to anyone say anything negative about him in his presence.
It’s been said that one of the reasons for Trump’s decision to run for President was Obama’s jokes about him at the White House correspondent’s dinner in 2011. If you watch the footage from the night, you’ll see President Obama making fun of Trump about his pursuit of Obama’s birth certificate and his racist Birtherism claims, but unlike everyone else teased that night (including the representatives of Fox News), Trump is incapable of laughing at himself.
Instead, he sits there and seethes. His enormous ego is so fragile that any threat to it is untenable. Every negative word directed at him cuts deep. For someone like Trump, insults hurt. It’s why he thinks names like “Sleepy Joe” and “Shifty Adam Schiff” score points.
Insults hurt him, so he assumes they hurt others, too.
It’s why Trump aggressively tries to remove unflattering photos of himself from the internet, failing to realize that exposing this weakness only causes Americans to post those unflattering photos even more. It’s why Trump tried to block Americans (myself included) who insult him on Twitter. It’s why he has opened cabinet meetings with his sycophants complimenting him on live television.
His ego is fragile. It requires inflation at all times. It can’t stand to be poked.
So when someone calls you a name, agree wholeheartedly. Double down by directing the name calling at yourself. Disarm your opponent. Render their childish, pathetic weapon useless by demonstrating how little it hurts you.
But if you find yourself in verbal combat with someone who uses name calling constantly, perhaps consider deploying the name calling weapon against your opponent. Determine if you’re dealing with someone like Donald Trump, for whom insults wound deeply.
If so, fire away.