Retarder

Trump loves kicking around the R-word, so I looked up the definition and it turns out the shoe kinda fits.

The greatest politician in United States history — and possibly the greatest in our species’ history since the cavewomen who convinced their rowdy prehistoric mates to put their egos aside and tribe up — loves to pick on people. And I believe he picks especially hard on folks like my dear mama, bless her soul: fancy white ladies.

That’s because as cunning as President Trump is, he knows he’s no match for even a half-decent white-lady sorceress. He can bang with the middling ones — see Clinton, Hillary — but a good one? Like someone with Elphaba-from-Wicked-level energy? Or the top-notch female journalists he targets? They’d smoke him like a blunt, and he knows it. 

My twenty-something cousin, a budding star investigative journalist and sorceress whose vibe reminds me of my fancy, revolutionary mama, could work him in a battle of wits.

But my dear cousin, bless her heart, isn’t down for the rough stuff that Trump—apex predator of his subspecies—craves.

Trump thinks he’s smarter than everyone — even though he’s not; he’s barely smarter than me, and I’m a dirt-dawg meathead with a heart of gold — except for fancy white-lady sorceresses. He knows he can’t bumble with them bees. So instead of discussing actual issues, he does what insecure men do and what my supersmart cousin would never do: he name-calls. He feels out the sorceresses, senses instantly they could out-wit him, and defaults to the elementary-school-playground toolkit.

Make no mistake, the leader of the free world is out here calling elite professionals—the kind who get White House credentials—little kid insults like “stupid,” “ugly,” and “piggy” like we’re playing monkey bars. It’s so wyld it’s kind of comical, like we’re living in a real life version of the movie Idiocracy where the president got elected because his roast game was way strong.

And what’s even wylder is Trump’s not even using his best material with these women. Far from it. Trump might be the most accomplished insult comic of his era — my man is genuinely hilarious. Part of me would love to hear him roast me about my slight limp, wide nose, or imperfect skin the way my meathead best friend used to when we were coming up playing basketball for ca$h money and he was trying to rattle me.

If you got them both in the same room — which my friend would love, because he hella Trumpy — they’d probably gang up on me like my friend and my dad sometimes do when I’m talking way too much yang. And I’d love to see if my mouthpiece could still hold up against those roastmasters two against one. I believe I would meet the moment and cap on them boyz hard af all day like I was the mixed-brother (Cap)tain America. I actually dreamed that exact scenario once — except in the dream, my friend cracked a vaguely racist black joke and Trump got all mock-serious and defended my honor as an African-American Man.

The thing about Trump is this: as funny as he is, he’s also super insecure. Most funny people are. Humor is a shield when you’re terrified people will notice you don’t know what you’re doing and making it up as you go. Lord knows I know—that’s why I got jokes.

Another hallmark of insecurity is bragging, which Trump does constantly. That’s why he talks so loudly about “grabbing women in the p” and how they love it. And sure, sometimes they do love it (of course they do!), but you’re not supposed to brag about it. You’re supposed to teach the youngbloods about how it’s done like how the Smokestack twins from Sinners skooled their younger cousin on how to behave with women in the streetz and the sheetz.

But Trump can’t teach folks anything about respect or intimacy, because he lacks wisdom. And, bless his heart, he probably suffers from some below-the-belt issues. After all, a man who’s actually bringing thunder down under doesn’t need to talk about the weather.

For years, Trump has insulted women and bragged crudely about his sexual exploits, and for reasons our society will likely need intensive therapy to process, we collectively let it slide and elected him president twice. 

Kamala tried to stand up to him, but — bless her heart — she was no match for that wizard. She might’ve had a shot if her running mate, the governor of my state, had done what men in that position are supposed to do and used his platform to coach other men up on how to treat women. I’m not talking about performative “defending women,” although that sometimes has its place. I mean basic pointers on communication, as we men are often slow on the uptake, especially when it comes to women and female stuff. While women often find men frustratingly slow on this front, some of us just need a little extra help — usually from another man who can break things down in the simplest terms possible like my egghead best friend sometimes does for me when he thinks I’m “just not getting it.”

Even though Governor Walz spent decades teaching school, he didn’t lean into that educator role when he was supposed to have Kamala’s back. But he did recently decide to step into a different one: condemning the word retard as the new “R-word,” as if it belonged on Mount Cussmore next to the N-bomb, the C-bomb, and the F-bomb.

To be fair, Trump did call him a retard first. But still.

The fact that “retard” achieved “R-word” status made me a little sad. Not because I want to use it toward people — I don’t — but because I’ve always liked the sound of the word. The hard R at the start. The percussive impact at the end. If you lock yourself in a closet and whisper it, it hits like spoken martial arts. Sometimes I imagine Salma Hayek saying it, rolling the R like a drumline.

Akin to my meathead best friend thinking he should get to say the N-word because blacks called him one as a compliment, I thought I should get to use the R-word because I considered it “neutral” and descriptive, not pejorative, in nature.

To be clear, I didn’t even think “retard” was an actual noun, and I was mostly interested in reclaiming the ability to describe egregiously obtuse behavior as “retarded.”

Turns out I was wrong. I looked it up and it’s a real noun, which makes it an actual slur. So I will continue to abstain from using it about and around people.

Fortunately, I have a walk-in closet and a vivid imagination where I can indulge my “R-word” fantasies and go full retard in private.

But my research yielded etymological gold. I discovered that the word retarder — which sounds like a pretend insult the lowercase j version of me might’ve invented on the playground back when I was dealing with bullies like Trump— is a real word. Merriam-Webster defines it as: “someone who delays or impedes development or progress; one who slows advancement or accomplishment.”

Then it hit me.

As a bloke who regularly insults everyone, picks on fancy white ladies, brags crudely about sex, and punches down at vulnerable people while slowing the moral and civic progress of an entire nation…

Trump is, quite literally, the Retarder-in-Chief.

I imagine that if I were posted up at my meathead best friend’s crib, watching football and playing the dozens with him and Trump, and I called him that, he’d laugh first — before clapping back about one of my feminine traits. That’s because my vibrational signature hits like that of his eternal nemeses: fancy white ladies. And I’m sure it would trigger him.

And then, right in that opening, I’d take my shot.
Gently, humorously, but directly, I’d skool him on how to talk to — and about — women with even a fraction of the respect the Smokestack twins taught their young cousin.