Thug: Background for Selecting the Word
It has taken some time to resolve the proper definition of the first title word for this blog post. I had a pretty settled notion in my own mind what the proper meaning of this term is in my native language, English. That understanding was based on the usage pattern I was taught in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s when I first encountered this vocabulary word. After consulting some online dictionaries, I had some questions about the accuracy of that understanding.
Time for a little philology lesson.* First off, I had forgotten the original was derived from southeast Asia Indian sources.
Thug, proper noun, a member of the former Indian cult Thuggee
From the Wikipedia entry on Thuggee:
Thuggee or tuggee (Hindi, Nepali, Urdu, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Kannada) refers to the acts of Thugs, an organized gang of professional robbers. Thugs travelled in groups across South Asia for six hundred years.
To take advantage of their victims, the Thugs would join travellers and gain their confidence; this would allow them to surprise and strangle the travellers with a handkerchief or noose. The word “Thuggee” derives from the Hindi (ṭhag), which means “deceiver”. Related words are the verb (thugna) “to deceive”, from the Sanskrit (sthaga) “cunning, sly, fraudulent”, and (sthagati) “he conceals”.
The Thugs’ modus operandi was to join a caravan as fellow travellers, delaying their attack until the other travellers lost their initial wariness of the newcomers. Depending on the size of the target group, it might take hundreds of miles to reach a suitable place and time. There were variations on this method. When tackling a large group, a Thuggee band might disperse along a route and join a group in stages, concealing their acquaintanceship and eventually outnumbering their intended victims in small, non-threatening increments. If the travellers doubted any one party, they might confide their worries to another party of the Thuggee band; the trusted band would be best placed to deal with those members of the caravan at the appropriate time, or advise their colleagues to modify their behavior to allay suspicion.
The Thugs were popularized by books such as Philip Meadows Taylor’s 1839 novel, Confessions of a Thug, which introduced the word “thug” to the English language.
In the last 30 years or so, in the United States the term thug has sometimes absorbed a racial tinge, not part of the original meaning of the word or its origins. This is a recent development, and not a welcome deformation of language in a word that is centuries old. Here is one man’s opinion. I think he substantially overstates the evidence for his case.
The Racially Charged Meaning Behind The Word ‘Thug’, April 30, 2015 Commentary heard on NPR’s All Things Considered:
NPR’s Melissa Block speaks to John McWhorter, associate professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, about the use of the word “thug” to describe Baltimore rioters.
BLOCK: John, I’ve been looking at the Merriam-Webster definition of thug, and it describes it as a brutal ruffian or assassin. What’s the origin of this word?
MCWHORTER: Well, the word originates in India as a word for roughly that. And because the British ran India for a good long time, the word jumped the rails from Indian languages to English, and that’s the reason that we in America have used the word for a very long time. And until rather recently, it did mean what you might call a ruffian, but of course, things have changed.
BLOCK: Well, how have they changed?
MCWHORTER: Well, the truth is that thug today is a nominally polite way of using the N-word. Many people suspect it, and they are correct. When somebody talks about thugs ruining a place, it is almost impossible today that they are referring to somebody with blond hair. It is a sly way of saying there go those black people ruining things again. And so anybody who wonders whether thug is becoming the new N-word doesn’t need to. It’s most certainly is.
The word thug is more than 800 years old and has proven perfectly serviceable in the original. All in all, I prefer the more traditional meaning of the term when I grew up, to indicate a ruffian or bully who deceives others, and often conceals himself as a fellow traveler to get past a stranger’s natural wariness.
I do not endorse the recent racial addendum to the meaning of thugs and thuggery.
Synonyms for thug includes ruffian.
Ruffian is perhaps a more precise meaning, but it doesn’t roll off the tongue or pack the auditory punch of thug.
Thuggery sounds to me like it is a good match for Trump’s own behavior towards his opponents, and that of his newfound followers towards the public, in general, who happen to disagree with them.
In the current US political context, accusations of thuggery have been aimed at Chris Christie (February 3, 2014), as well as Trump before (July 28, 2015).
See Karl Grossman in Counterpunch, “The Thug Politics of Chris Christie” (2014)
See McKay Coppins in BuzzFeed, “Meet Donald Trump’s Proud Bullies, Goons, And Thugs”
In fact, Chris Christie has been cited as the first example of contemporary use for the definition of ruffian at dictionary .com
What is a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing?
Someone who hides malicious intent under the guise of kindliness.
The cautionary advice that one cannot necessarily trust someone who appears kind and friendly has been with us for many centuries.
The King James Version of the Bible, 1611, gives this warning in Matthew 7:15: Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
From the Wikipedia entry for the phrase:
The phrase originates in a sermon by Jesus recorded in the Christian New Testament: Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves (Gospel of Matthew 7:15, King James Version). The sermon then suggests that their true nature will be revealed by their actions (by their fruits shall ye know them, verse 16). In the centuries following, the phrase was used many times in the Latin writings of the Church Fathers and later on in European vernacular literature. A Latin proverb also emerged, Pelle sub agnina latitat mens saepe lupina (Under a sheep’s skin often hides a wolfish mind). Although the story of a wolf disguised as a sheep has been counted as one of Aesop’s Fables in modern times, there is no record of a fable with this precise theme before the Middle Ages, although there are earlier fables of Aesop in Greek sources to which the Gospel parable might allude.
From author Leslie Vernick, in her counseling blog post on January 16, 2016, titled Three Ways to Spot a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing:
One of the methods bank tellers and merchants learn in order to distinguish real money from counterfeit bills is to examine genuine $100 bills over and over again so that they more likely to spot the counterfeit bills when they see them. In the same way we can learn to recognize destructive people by knowing what to look for.
Jesus said by their fruit we will know them. Here are three things to watch out for.
1.) Wolves live for the love of power rather than the power of love. Wolves refuse accountability and resist submission to authority. You’ve heard the phrase lone wolf? Wolves in sheep’s clothing put themselves as their highest point of reference. They often use charisma and charm to “win” people over but they do not have mutual or reciprocal relationships. People are to be used, possessed, exploited, or controlled rather than loved.
2.) Wolves look like sheep and talk like sheep but they bite like wolves, especially when the sheep are disagreeing or dissenting. Winning and being right are their highest values and they do whatever they need to in order to stay “on top”. When operating in church or religious settings their methods are often underhanded and cunning in order to appear less aggressive. They don’t want to look like wolves, that’s why they pretend to be sheep.
3.) Wolves are experts at deceit. That’s why they are successful at looking like sheep. Wolves pretend to be good and care about the sheep but those closest to them (their family) know the truth. They’ve been bitten again and again and again.
What Does the Bible Say About Deceivers?
From past encounters, we know that Donald Trump has shown he is weak with respect to names of the Books of the Bible, knowledge of important common Bible verses, and arguably, Bible moral teachings.
Matthew 7:16, Sermon on the Mount:
Matthew 7:16 is the sixteenth verse of the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament and is part of the Sermon on the Mount. This verse continues the section warning against false prophets.
In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
One explication of the meaning of this well-known verse:
The meaning of the “know them by their deeds” phrase comes from the Christian bible. Matthew 7:16 reads, “Ye shall know them by their fruits,” and translators of the Greek and Hebrew generally interpret “fruit” as “deed,” “act,” or “work.” The meaning is that it is often misleading to base one’s impression of someone on their words and that we are better off focusing on their acts. That is, know them not so much by what they say but what they do.
Real Sheepskins as Recognition of Academic Achievement
While we are on the subject of sheepskin, let’s talk about the real deal as an emblem of hard-won academic achievement.
Trump is often heard bleating about his wonderful education, the best schools, how smart he is, ad nauseam. As any adult woman in America knows full well, the more a man brags and goes on about how rich he is, how successful he is, what wonderful cars he has, what great toys he has, indeed how well endowed he is, the more quickly her defensive shields automatically deploy, and she suspects exaggeration and deception. We only know some features of Trump’s deceptions; others are still hidden. Those who really have it (whatever it you want to consider) don’t feel the need to advertise it. Word gets around.
Back to academic sheepskins. Trump has one pretty good sheepskin from a well-regarded university. An undergraduate college bachelors degree from the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school. Let it be noted, he was a transfer student to Penn after two years at Fordham, so he actually attended for two years, or half a sheepskin’s worth. He received no distinguished academic honors in college. He does not have an MBA (Masters of Business Administration) degree from anywhere.
How does Trump’s record stack up against his near contemporary, billionaire businessman, fellow New Yorker, Michael Bloomberg? Bloomberg has two big sheepskins, including an MBA from Harvard, another Ivy League powerhouse. Or Trump’s likely Democratic opponent in the fall (HC)? She also has two full sheepskins, including a law degree (Yale) from an Ivy. Or how about that loser, incompetent President guy who maybe wasn’t even born in the USA? The President actually has two full sheepskins, both Ivies, one a law degree from Harvard. Or Ted Cruz who has two sheepskins, both from Ivies?
In the sheepskin department, despite his frequent boasts about his incomparable prowess, Trump is short by an average of about a full sheepskin and one-half compared to boatloads of his contemporaries.
Trump talks the talk of academic success; others live it.** Trump deserves congratulations for attending college and graduating. Completing college is a significant personal accomplishment. But objectively, there are quite literally hundreds of thousands of individuals and entire families who leave Trump in the dust on this score. His educational background is just medium-warm. He simply can’t bear to admit not being the best at anything, from the trivial to the fundamental. How sad for him.
Latest Examples of Trump Campaign Thuggery
#1.) From the Huffington Post on April 17, 2016:
Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski says he’s ready to move on from the controversy surrounding him, but he isn’t ready to apologize to Michelle Fields, the former Breitbart reporter he grabbed at a campaign event.
Fields wanted to see Lewandowski prosecuted for battery, with video showing him yanking her away from Trump, the GOP front-runner, at a March campaign event in Palm Beach, Florida. Fields posted photos of bruises on her arm after the incident. Lewandowski called her “delusional.”
In an interview with Lewandowski on “Fox News Sunday,” Chris Wallace gave him the opportunity to publicly apologize to Fields, noting that she could still file a civil lawsuit if she wanted to.
“Here and now I’d like to say I’ve never spoken to Ms. Fields,” Lewandowski responded. “I turned over my phone records to the Palm Beach County district attorney’s office. It clearly shows I called her phone number that evening [after] I read about this on the Twitter feed. I’d be happy to have a conversation with her. But to apologize to somebody I’ve never spoken to and candidly don’t remember ever having any interaction with is something that is a little unrealistic right now.”
#2.) From the Washington Post, April 16, 2016:
In his ever-escalating fight with the Republican National Committee, Donald Trump warned Saturday that party leaders should reform its system for selecting a nominee or face a “rough July” when it holds its convention in Cleveland.
“The Republican National Committee, they’d better get going, because I’ll tell you what: You’re going to have a rough July at that convention,” Trump said Saturday afternoon at a campaign rally in Syracuse. “You’d better get going, and you’d better straighten out the system because the people want their vote. The people want their vote, and they want to be represented properly.”
Last month, Trump said that if Republican leaders ignore the votes of millions of party members and enter a brokered convention, “I think you’d have riots, I think you’d have riots.”
“Look, I used to be the ultimate establishment person, nine months ago,” Trump said. “I was like the perfect person. I gave massive campaign contributions to everybody. … But I saw the system, and the system is not working. And the system is all rigged, as far as the delegate stuff is going. Now look, I guess I’m complaining because it’s not fair to the people.”
“So the system is rigged. It’s a bad system, it’s a dirty system, and we’re going to do something about it.
#3.) From Rosie Gray at BuzzFeed, April 1, 2016:
Trump Ally Roger Stone Says He’s Planning “Days Of Rage” At The Convention
Roger Stone, the longtime Republican political operative and current ally of Donald Trump, says he’s trying to organize protests at the Republican convention in Cleveland this summer to disrupt any effort by the party to “steal” the nomination from the frontrunner.
Stone tweeted several times on Friday evening about his plans, announcing a “Stop the Steal March on Cleveland” and calling on supporters to get to Cleveland for the convention in July.
Stone told BuzzFeed News over email that he is planning “#DaysofRage,” a seeming reference to the Weatherman-organized Days of Rage protests that took place in Chicago in 1969. Asked to elaborate, Stone said he was talking about “rally-protests -at delegate hotels street theater.”
Stone said the campaign was not involved in organizing this, instead saying the protests will be “organized by Trump nation,” but said that “we did inform them.” He said he had “issued the call to action” on Infowars, the Alex Jones-run conspiracy show, on March 30, that they “will stage protests at hotels of state delegates of states supporting the BIG STEAL,” and that he and Jones would be speaking (Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul are both invited).
Stone, a colorful figure known for his dirty trickster reputation, worked for the Trump campaign until August, when he and the campaign parted ways after disagreement over Trump’s feud with Megyn Kelly. But Stone still supports Trump and acknowledges talking to him even though he no longer works for him. “We just have a rhythm,” Stone told GQ this week.
In the same GQ interview, Stone hinted at unrest at the convention, saying “I think there’d be extreme anger by the Trump supporters. I don’t know that it would boil over into violence. Trump is certainly not advocating violence.”
There have been a spate of violent incidents at Trump rallies, and the campaign appears to condone violence from the top down — Trump has stood by his campaign manager who has been charged with simple battery after grabbing a reporter, and has promised to pay legal fees for supporters who physically confront protesters. This has led to concerns that a contested convention this year could boil over into violence in Cleveland fueled by disgruntled Trump supporters; Trump himself has predicted “riots” if the convention doesn’t lead to him as the nominee.
There are faint echoes of Brown Shirts and jack boots mingled in with these words of threat and bluster. No other candidate or campaign has resorted to them. They have no legitimate place in our political discourse. They are offensive and destructive to the entire body politic.
How Do We Measure We the People?
Trump is often at pains recently to proclaim that the People have been denied the right to vote. Or the People support his political positions. Or the People this or that….
“We the People” is a potent cultural symbol in the United States. After all, there it is emblazoned in the opening paragraph of our U.S. Constitution, one of the two holiest political documents binding Americans together. You mess with “We the People” at your peril.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The initial rules to establish our country required 9 of 13 states to agree. The Continental Congress – which still functioned at irregular intervals – passed a resolution on September 13, 1788, to put the new Constitution into operation with when 11 states of the original 13 colonies ratified it. North Carolina and Rhode Island ratified by May 1790.
No simple majority for our Founding Fathers. To put our Constitution into effect a super majority of We the People (represented by the states) had to agree (69%). In actual fact, a double super majority agreed: 85%. Within 18 months, 100% of We the People (represented by their States) agreed.
Here are some definitions offered by the Oxford English Dictionaries online:
Human beings in general or considered collectively:
1.1 (the people) The citizens of a country, especially when considered in relation to those who govern them:
1.2 (the people) Those without special rank or position in society; the populace:
1.3 (one’s people) A person’s parents or relatives:
1.4 (one’s people) The supporters or employees of a person in a position of power or authority:
1.5 (the People) US The state prosecution in a trial: pretrial statements made by the People’s witnesses
We the People is not just an iconic and beloved concept for virtually all Americans, but it has daily practical effects as well. For example, in a criminal prosecution a case is brought by the People against a defendant. The standard of proof in such a case id “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Even in a civil trial the jury must find more likely than not (that is, greater than 50%) to decide a case in favor of one party or the other.
We take the notion of We the People seriously here in America. We prefer not just a majority, but a strong majority, when possible, to ratify an important decision.
I’m no legal scholar, and there are undoubtedly flaws in the exact details of this description, but I think the general point is valid.
How do Trump’s persistent complaints about the People not getting to decide their political fate hold up?
In 32 Republican contests to date, Trump has never, not once, secured a simple majority of Republicans who chose to vote. Since Republicans make up about 25%- 30% of all voters, even a majority of Republicans is far from a majority of We the People.
When Trump says he leads in the Polls, he is speaking of polls among Republicans, not We the People (all Americans).
Trump has never actually won a real election to any office in his 69 years, so he has no claim to a track record with We the People as voters. His former TV show had a as many as 20.7 million viewers each week in 2003 (Season 1- its best year), a small fraction (7%) of total We the People television viewers (284 million viewers).
His 7 million Twitter followers, even assuming all the accounts are valid, is a small slice of Twitter’s hundreds of millions (236 million monthly users) of users. His 7 or 8 million Facebook followers are a fraction of its 160 million U.S. members.
Trump’s total cumulative vote for all Republican primaries is 8.2 million as of April 18, 2016. All votes for both parties is 38.8 million. Trump has received 21% of We the People who have voted so far in 2016.
His 8.2 million votes represents 6.3% of those who will vote in November (expected 130 million). In order to win in November, Trump would need more than 65 million votes. He has received 8.2 million. And only 2.5% of the total We the People U.S. population of 319 million. How does less than 3% documented support become a substitute for We the People? This is gold-infused Trump magic fairy dust at work.
So where does Trump get off claiming he has the support of We the People for anything? Or that he knows what We the people want? He is engaging in fabulist thinking, and yelling it over and over, as if tireless repetition will somehow make it happen.
As of April 18, 2016 Trump doesn’t represent We the People as a whole, or in any single contest so far, or in any meaningful, measurable way on any subject. He has a simple plurality among Republicans only (party affiliation R-26%, D-32%, I-38%), and barely more than 20% (1 in 5) support among the entire We the People after 10 months of full time campaigning.
Trump is applying to interview for America’s biggest job. We the People have not hired him for anything. He is competing to secure a call-back interview. He hasn’t made it to the final Red team selection round yet. If he doesn’t get his campaign act together, he is going to be sent home early, with the other wannabes.
*Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary criticism, history, and linguistics.[1] It is more commonly defined as the study of literary texts and written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form, and the determination of their meaning. A person who pursues this kind of study is known as a philologist.
Classical philology is the philology of Classical Sanskrit, Pali, Tamil, Greek and Latin. Historically Classical philology originated principally from the Library of Pergamum and the Library of Alexandria[2] around the 4th century BCE,
**I admire my college friend and roommate Joe immensely. I am proud to have known him as a friend for nearly 50 years. He married an accomplished woman. Both are health professionals, and have been married to each other for decades. Each of them has two full sheepskins. They have two admirable sons, both of whom are in their twenties, each working on his second full sheepskin. The boys may end of with another one or two sheepskins between them. Education has always been a priority for this family. The whole family gets it, and they have worked hard to make sure their children could reach their maximum potential.