Donald Trump, in case you haven't noticed, is obsessed with "fairness," and there is a high degree of consistency in how he assesses fairness. That which is positive toward Trump is fair, and that which is negative toward Trump is unfair. This extends to Trump's allies and enemies. Negative toward Trump's enemies is fair, and positive toward his allies is fair. How does Trump determine whether or not someone is his ally? Positivity toward Trump, of course. There is mathematical consistency to how Trump assesses fairness, and you can predict with perfect certainty whether or not Trump will declare a process fair by tracing out positivity or negativity toward Trump or his close allies.
There is an important concept underlying this, which I use to teach about the media: the distinction between neutrality and unbiasedness. Neutrality means not picking a side. Unbiasedness means telling the objective truth. They aren't the same thing. They overlap only in the circumstance when the two parties are mirror images, equally guilty of all political crimes. When they aren't, journalists have a problem, and I've written about that. What do you do if, for example, one candidate asserts that climate change is a Chinese hoax, perpetrated to undercut US economic competitiveness, and then lies on the debate stage and says that he never said any such thing? What if that same candidate claims that his primary opponent's father was part of the plot to kill JFK? What if that same candidate rose to political fame spouting insane, racist lies that the then-sitting president was an illegal immigrant, even though that lie had been debunked over, and over, and over again? In other words, what do you do if one candidate lies on a scale unprecedented in political history? Neutrality would require journalists to pretend that neither candidate is more dishonest than the other, and the truth is not known. Unbiasedness would require pointing out that the fuckin' liar is the most despicable fuckin' liar in political history. By so much that the scale has been broken and we have been desensitized to how much he lies about everything.
Did you even remember that he said Ted Cruz's father killed Kennedy, or did that just fade into the background of all the other insane lies he tells?
Anyway, neutrality versus unbiasedness. What does it mean to treat everyone equally? Does it mean giving everyone equally positive and negative coverage? That would mean papering over the extent to which the fuckin' liar lies. Would it mean giving everyone the same level of scrutiny? That would mean just calling out the lies and letting the chips fall where they may.
That brings us to "fairness." Lesson to students: Never start a paper with "Webster's dictionary defines __ as..." As Comic Book Guy might say, worst opening ever. Still, fairness actually refers to equal treatment and/or objectivity. They're not quite the same things. Context matters for interpreting words in this messy language. After all, when Trump uses the word, "fairness," it just means positivity toward Trump. But, it is worth examining how he got there.
Remember that Trump has a massive-yet-fragile ego. He believes himself to be a god-who-walks-the-earth, and the greatest human being ever, or rather, superior to all humans. That is why every word out of his mouth is either bragging about himself, or insulting someone else because they don't like him. How did he get that way? It is hard to say how early this began, but everything about how his life unfolded has reinforced this. He was born a rich white guy, with everything handed to him. Remember that as a businessman, he's basically a failure. He inherited a shitload of money from his father, and if you took that money, and put it in a passively managed S&P index fund, his total wealth now only exceeds that by a bit, but that's after some interesting stuff. He lost a lot of money in real estate, and even casinos, because he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. He's an idiot. But, he made it back by going on tv and playing the role of the genius businessman. Trump is to business as professional wrestlers are to martial arts-- he's great at bragging about how great he is at it, and that's it. Beyond that, he's scarily stupid, but privileged enough to have been born a very rich, white dude unburdened by conscience. How many of such people in this country wind up not rich? Not very many...
And he doesn't tolerate criticism. So, as soon as it was feasible, he began surrounding himself with sycophants, and purging his inner circle of anyone who ever criticized him for anything. For the last half a century, he hasn't let anyone near him who calls him on his shit. He has surrounded himself with people who tell him how great he is.
For half a century.
Is it any wonder that Trump believes himself to be a living god, lashes out at any criticism, and that he can't stop bragging for five fucking seconds?
And if he really believes that, let's return to the concept of fairness. If you believe yourself to be a living god, as Trump does, then anything short of praise is less than you deserve, and therefore... unfair. All criticism is... unfair, because you are a living god.
There are a lot of things that should worry us about a president who cannot take any criticism. Nobody enjoys being criticized, but if you cannot accept criticism, you cannot learn or improve, and Trump, over the course of his public life, has gotten worse, and worse. Why? Because not only can he not take criticism, his raging egotism and insecurity cause him to respond to all criticism in the worst ways possible. His repeated references to "fairness" are probably sincere. He truly believes that any criticism of him is unfair because he believes himself to be so perfect as to be beyond any criticism.
That's... not good.