Donald Trump, the person, may have deserved the karmic payback of being booed at Sunday night’s World Series Game 5, but Trump, the president, should not have been subjected to such lack of respect.
When a president is acting in a non-political capacity or in a ceremonial role, his office merits respect from his fellow citizens. In disrespecting the office, they ultimately disrespect themselves.
A president in a non-political role always carries with him the identity of head of state and chief elected official of the citizenry. In both capacities, his symbolic role is important. As head of state, he is the chief representative of this great and good nation to the rest of the world. As chief elected official, he is the first public servant, someone whose role and function is as universal tribune for all Americans.
To repeat, this is not to say Americans should respect him because he is our “ruler.” He is not our ruler. He is our agent, duly chosen through a process that is as close as the civic realm ever gets to the sacred. This doesn’t mean he should be wildly cheered at a public event just because he is president. It does mean he — and through him, the fellow citizens who support him — should not be openly disrespected or mocked. If even unenthusiastic applause is too much to ask, then silence is perfectly appropriate. Booing, and chants of “lock him up,” is inappropriate, no matter how inappropriately he himself has acted on other occasions by encouraging similar behavior against other public figures in other public fora.
One should hasten to add that booing, in general, is rude behavior and should not be encouraged. But even if that sense of general decorum has long since been obviated, the decorum due for the President of the United States should remain.
It matters not that Trump himself rarely lives up to, or even seems to agree with, the idea that some norms of decorum should be maintained in the public square. The public should not descend to the level Trump the individual often sinks to. The public should be better than Trump, the person, so that our presidency isn’t besmirched.
