Most people, even Donald Trump, have probably heard of Miss Manners. They may not know this is the pen name of Judith Martin. I didn’t know this prior to beginning to write this Substack.
In 1978, Martin began writing an advice column, which was distributed three and later six times a week by Universal Uclick and carried in more than 200 newspapers worldwide. In the column, she answers etiquette questions contributed by her readers and writes short essays on problems of manners, or clarifies the essential qualities of politeness.
Martin writes about the ideas and intentions underpinning seemingly simple rules, providing a complex and advanced perspective, which she refers to as "heavy etiquette theory". Her columns have been collected in a number of books. In her writings, Martin refers to herself in the third person (e.g., "Miss Manners hopes...").
In a 1995 interview by Virginia Shea, Martin said:
You can deny all you want that there is etiquette, and a lot of people do in everyday life. But if you behave in a way that offends the people you're trying to deal with, they will stop dealing with you...There are plenty of people who say, "We don't care about etiquette, but we can't stand the way so-and-so behaves, and we don't want him around!" Etiquette doesn't have the great sanctions that the law has. But the main sanction we do have is in not dealing with these people and isolating them...
Martin identifies "blatant greed" as the most serious etiquette problem in the United States. The most frequently asked question she receives is how to politely demand cash from potential gift-givers (which she answers by stating that there is no polite way to do this), and the second most common question is how much potential guests must spend on a gift (determined by what the giver can afford, not by the event, relationship, related expenses or other factors).
This brings me to something that struck me in the New York Times today. The last two sentences in the following excerpt from their editorial board’s opinion piece “Trump’s Third-Term Musings Are Part of a Pattern” led me to make one comment.
The editorial concldued as follows:
In the decades since 1951, politicians from both parties occasionally called for the repeal of the 22nd Amendment, including Harry Truman and Mitch McConnell. But they did not argue that the amendment was unclear or could simply be evaded. They recognized that somebody who disagrees with a law should follow a legal process to change it. If Mr. Trump and his acolytes believe they have Congress and the states on their side, they are free to start a repeal campaign. What they should not do is pretend that any part of the Constitution is merely a suggestion. It’s the law.
My comment shown above was “What they are doing is treating the Constitution as a kind of Miss Manners guide to etiquette which is easily ignored and unenforceable.”
Next down the page were the following comments. They represent most of the other 168 other opinions and reactions posted at the time of this writing.
Here’s the entire long post from George:
To a considerable degree, of course, Trump is grandstanding to his MAGA devotees with such talk. And it is indeed somewhat concerning given the fact that Trump has revealed that he has no real knowledge of the US Constitution and it's controlling role. But as worrisome as these pretensions are it is perhaps yet another sign too that Trump is not of sound mind? After all, over the past twelve months we've essentially traded in one elderly man for another. And we did so with some concern that the first one, Joe Biden, was suffering from cognitive decline due to aging. So should we really be surprised that we may now be encountering the reality of what happens when a POTUS begins to mentally "slip"? In 2024 the Democrats themselves tore down Joe Biden by calling into question his mental state. It was an act of political self-harming that has had dire consequences for the Nation. We cannot and should not expect the Republicans to act similarly now with regard to Donald Trump. He's apparently mentally slipping badly while tossing out Executive Orders on whim and fantasy. Yet the media remains silent to what is actually going on. I'm not worried about Trump having a third term. I much more concerned with how are we going to survive his second?
Here are the next comments (click to enlarge)
Getting back to good manners and etiquette and Donald J. Trump, who, lest we forget is the president. He’s president of the United States, not the president of Delta Tau Chi fraternity, otherwise known as Animal House.
Trump certainly knows how to mind his manners when he wants to. He just doesn’t give a shit about behaving in a way that adheres to any rules of etiquitte, let alone the rules in the United States Constitution.
Why make sure he follows the Constitution, the Law of the Land, when he treats the simple rules of good manners as irrelevant? These rules, while not actual laws, are all focused on behaving in ways that respect the feelings and sensibilities of other people. They require that one be sensitive to whether things they say, write, or do will offend someone. Offending other countries, which of course are collections of people, fuggedaboutit.
From wearing a blue suit to Pope Francis’s funeral to posting a photoshop of himself as the next pope, he insulted Catholics around the world. According to the dress code required by Vatican officials for Pope Francis' funeral, men were required to wear a dark suit, along with a long black tie. Trump showed up in blue. (Read article in Snopes.)
You can see the contrast in colors between what he wore and what Melania wore below.
Some people on X tried to excuse this by trying to find other men wearing blue suits and noting that Zelenskyy didn’t even wear a suit.
The salient point here isn’t whether or not the blue suit was appropriate attire for this solemn occasion.
The point is that if he gave a damn about good manners he would have worn the traditional black suit with a black or dark tie. I doubt he even thought about this. He probably just decided to wear this on a whim. Below is Trump with his signature red tie when he addressed the United Nations:
At least he didn’t wear a suit with a bright red tie at the funeral, let alone one of these:
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