News Journal: Trump’s constant attacks are dividing our country

You know the one about the man who murders his parents and then pleads for mercy because he is an orphan?
When Abraham Lincoln told the story, he said it was his definition of a hypocrite. When Leo Rosten told the story in The Joys of Yiddish, he said it was a prime example of chutzpah.
Whichever you prefer, hypocrite or chutzpah, it seems to me the story pretty much illustrates what President Trump does every day. He attacks someone or some organization, and then, when the person or organization answers, he complains about how unfair they are to him.
When Teddy Roosevelt coined the term “bully pulpit,” he never imagined a president who would turn that presidential prerogative into a daily platform for a habitual bully. Nor could he have imagined a president who seems determined to widen and harden the divisions in this country.
My guess is at least nine out of ten Trump tweets consist of either self-congratulatory praise or a personal attack on someone else. That also pretty much sums up the content of the rallies of adoring fans he sets up on a regular basis.
Don’t get used to Trump’s behavior. Normalization is dangerous
Whether tweets, rallies, or just random outbursts, his targets nearly always remind me of the Claude Rains line in Casablanca: “Round up the usual suspects.” Because the targets are so predictable:
Hillary Clinton: You have to wonder if he will ever stop obsessing about the 2016 election.
The Media: Except for Breitbart and Fox News, “false news” from “the enemies of the people.”
Former Presidents: Not one—Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, and especially Obama—got anything right. Ever. Now only he can fix it.
Democrats: Pelosi and Schumer, to be sure, but not many elected officials have escaped low blows like “a low I.Q. individual.” One of many reasons that after almost two years the President has no major bipartisan accomplishments.
Republicans: He is a bipartisan bully, having attacked Republican senators Corker, McCain, Graham, Flake, Murkowski, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
People of Color: A constant, right up to the recent attacks on LeBron James and TV Interviewer Don Lemon, after the James interview about his widely praised foundation for at-risk children in his hometown of Akron, Ohio.
Foreign Leaders: He has repeatedly attacked our oldest and most trusted allies — United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau…
U.S. Intelligence Agencies: He has attacked the highest-ranking National Security officials of both the Obama and Trump administrations, all of them in agreement that Russia interfered in the 2016 Presidential election.
His own appointees: They were all “the best of the best” when he appointed them but that didn’t stop him from savaging Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, White House Communication Director Sean Spicer and White House Chief of Staff Reince Preibus.
Major Corporations: Amazon, Boeing, Delta, Facebook, General Motors, Lockheed Martin, Merck.
Attack, attack, denigrate, tear down, smear, vilify — we become numb to it, but we all know, I think, there may be long-term results that could further divide and weaken us as a nation.
We know, too, that President Trump is not going to change. But if we must live with his constant vitriol, perhaps we should remind ourselves that this too shall pass. Eventually we will return to the kind of leadership that helped unite us in a country we could be proud of.
I have found it helpful to remember the speech Abraham Lincoln made in 1858 at the Illinois Republican State Convention, which had just made him their Senate candidate to run against Democrat Stephen Douglas. Lincoln quoted Matthew 12:25, the passage where Jesus responds to the Pharisees: “And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.”
““A house divided against itself cannot stand.” It is as true today as it ever was.

Ted Kaufman is a former U.S. senator from Delaware.