Punching Down from the Bully Pulpit

Teddy and Me

When I was a young kid, I suffered from pretty severe asthma. My parents thought that I might gain some comfort and inspiration from the biography of President Theodore Roosevelt, who overcame childhood asthma with a rigorous DIY fitness regimen. They gave me a copy of Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, which was part of the mid-20th century Landmark Series, a collection (as I realized later) of intensely whitewashed biographies of prominent Americans.

While I did not grow up to become President, I did eventually outrun my asthma as a member of my high school cross-country team (go Bulldogs!). I also developed a fascination with Roosevelt that simplified birthday and Christmas gift-giving for my family for years; by the time I went to college, I had built up a decent library of books both by and about Roosevelt, and a handful of Teddy Bears (one of which, Poor Old Bear, still travels with me).

The former President has been on the mind of the current President lately, thanks to the recent opening of a new library in Medora, North Dakota, that celebrates Roosevelt's time in the region as a cowboy and big-game hunter. As part of the festivities for America's 250th birthday, President Trump flew to North Dakota to help celebrate the new facility. While there, he conversed with an AI recreation of TR, and then gave an hour-long speech praising Roosevelt and noting that "[he] had a freakin’ wild life."

I have a hard time imagining that Roosevelt would be similarly impressed with his fellow New Yorker (the two are the only presidents born in New York City). Roosevelt was an ardent conservationist who established several significant national parks and helped pass the Antiquities Act of 1906. He spent much of his life fighting corruption by public officials, culminating in the passage of the first federal ban on political donations by corporations (the Tillman Act of 1907). And when the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, Roosevelt formed the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, and famously led a "rag-tag group of polo players, hunters, cowboys, Native Americans, and athletic college buddies" on horseback during the Battle of San Juan Heights. This was not a man who was worried about testosterone replacement therapy; his spurs were real.

Bully!

But I think that the thing Roosevelt would have most disliked about Trump is that he is a bully. Perhaps influenced by his own childhood as a weak and sickly boy, Roosevelt loathed bullies. According to his biographer Charles Morris,

Here are his opinions of what the American boy should be, if he is to become a worthy American man: "The chances are strong that he won't be much of a man unless he is a good deal of a boy. He must not be a coward or a weakling, a bully, a shirk or a prig. He must work hard and play hard. He must be clean-minded and clean-lived, and able to hold his own under all circumstances and against all comers." – "The Marvelous Career of Theodore Roosevelt" (1910)

There is some irony in Roosevelt's disdain for bullies, of course, given that one of his favorite expressions was the word "Bully!" (meaning "Excellent!"). Few people still use the word in that sense, although it lingers in our political lexicon because of Roosevelt's famous epithet for the powerful reach of a president's voice: "The White House," he said, "is a bully pulpit!"

The occupant of the White House has always been able to shape public discourse by the very nature of the power vested in him (and someday, her). But for much of our history, there was a mediating party: the press. In the era of social media, that gateway is gone; a sufficiently canny operator (as Trump has proven himself to be) can bypass traditional channels and directly communicate with his supporters.

As another web-savvy New Yorker once said, "With great power comes great responsibility." Someone who has the power to communicate in real-time with millions of people has a moral and ethical duty to use that power wisely. That is particularly true if they are a public official, let alone the President of the United States. But as recent events have shown, school officials must confront the possibility that the highest elected official in the country will put their children at risk.

Bully-in-Chief

In early June 2026, the Gateway STEM Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota, held a graduation ceremony for its kindergarten students. Many of the students at the school are members of the area's Somali American and Muslim communities, and have relatives living in various countries around the world. The school set up a livestream of its graduation ceremony so that far-flung family members could share in the joy and excitement of the event.

So what could go wrong?

Quite a bit, as it turns out. The experience of the Gateway STEM Academy offers object lessons for schools across the country, as well as disturbing insights into the power of digital technology to amplify hatred and racism.

On June 12, 2026, a Twitter/X account labeled "End Wokeness" posted a 14-second clip from the charter school livestream with the caption

Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota

Every girl is in a hijab… in kindergarten

The post is factually incorrect; several female students on stage were not wearing hijabs. But accuracy was not the goal here. End Wokeness is an anonymous right-wing account that describes its mission as "Fighting, exposing, and mocking wokeness." The post, which happened to show the students singing a celebratory song in Somali, has been viewed 2.8 million times (for comparison, the population of St. Paul is approximately 311,000).

Three weeks later, the clip came to the attention of President Trump (or someone on his comms team), and he reposted it on his Truth Social account, which has nearly 13 million followers. He did not add his own comment, but he later reposted the clip again, this time with the original message written by End Wokeness. No effort was made by the President or End Wokeness to blur the faces of the young children in the video clip.

Parents and Somali community members expressed grave concerns about the possibility of threats and physical harm resulting from the President's actions. Trump has long targeted the Minnesota Somali community, often using language that the New York Times has characterized as a "xenophobic tirade." His followers gleefully followed suit; Trump's reposting of the clip from the graduation livestream garnered thousands of hate-filled responses, many suggesting that direct action needed to be taken in response to the so-called "invasion" of St. Paul.

Thankfully, there have been no reports of any harm to students or members of the Gateway STEM Academy in the days since the President's social media posts. But school officials have been meeting to discuss how to protect and support students in the wake of the online attacks.

Public Sharing Needs to Stop

It should go without saying that no public official, let alone the President of the United States, should be circulating unblurred images of children on social media without consent, particularly in support of a political agenda. That is especially true when that same individual has used rhetoric specifically intended to inflame hostility, hatred, and racial animus toward a particular group (in this case, Somali Americans).

There is basically nothing that school officials can do to change the behavior of an 80-year-old man cocooned in the layers of the presidency. But what they can do is think carefully about how to protect their students from this type of attack.

First and foremost, stop making photos and videos of students publicly available. The goal here is to starve the beast. Images of students can be misused in myriad ways: racial provocation, nudification, identity theft, unauthorized advertisements – the list is seemingly endless. Don't make it easy for people who want to misuse student images.

Second, educate the school community. There are plenty of alternatives to posting student photos and videos on social media. Send emails with attachments. Set up group chats in iMessage or WhatsApp. Create shared folders on Dropbox. All of these things (and many others) are a bit more complicated but in the end, much safer.

Third, use passwords and/or two-factor authentication for access to school content, including livestreams. Do your best to limit access to people who are actually connected to the students involved.

Let's be clear, though: none of these are perfect solutions. In almost any community, there will be a range of political opinions, and it only takes one person to share confidential login information or a potentially provocative clip, thereby triggering a social media onslaught. But school officials and teachers have an ethical obligation to do everything they can to protect the physical and mental safety of the students in their school. In our overheated world, it turns out that most of the time, "not sharing is caring."