Faced with an opponent who’s notoriously abusive towards anyone who bothers him, Hillary Clinton lamented yesterday, “Our culture has gotten too mean and too rough, especially to our children and teenagers.”Wait, did I say Hillary Clinton? I meant the remarks came from Melania Trump, Donald Trump’s wife, who delivered brief public remarks yesterday about the scourge of cyber-bullying.
“As we know now social media is a centerpiece of our lives,” she told a small but supportive crowd in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. “But like anything that is powerful it can have a bad side.”Children and teenagers “can be fragile,” she said. “They can be made to feel less in looks and intelligence.” … “Our culture has gotten too mean and too rough, especially to our children and teenagers,” she added.
At face value, there’s nothing wrong with remarks these. On the contrary, Melania Trump’s societal and cultural concerns are well founded.And by all appearances, her fears are entirely sincere. Last week, the prospective First Lady told ABC she wants to see more done to protect kids because what goes on online can be “very hurtful” to children. “We need to teach them how to use it,” she said. “What is right to say. What is not right to say.”But listening to Melania Trump make these points inevitably leads to a related question: has she met Donald Trump? Has she noticed the kind of impact he’s had on America’s public discourse?We could talk about Donald Trump’s mockery of a physically disabled reporter, or his shots at a Gold Star family, or “blood coming out of her wherever,” or “I like people that weren’t captured,” or the dozens of related examples. But even if we just stick to social media, the New York Times put together a list of the people, places, and things the Republican presidential candidate has insulted on Twitter.The list has 282 entries.This is not intended as criticism of Melania Trump, who raised a perfectly fair point about an important issue on which she has genuine concerns. That said, it’s nevertheless true that it was jarring to hear her deliver a high-profile speech — just days ahead of the election — that seemed like veiled criticism of her husband.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."