Donald Trump’s un-American infatuation with ‘Sir’ | Opinion
I’m a southerner. Born and bred. I’m also an amateur Civil War buff. Really amateur. Energetic, long term, but amateur, unsophisticated.
Read more Big Charlotte employer taps outsider as new CEO: ‘Confident he is the right leader’
I say all that to confess to a pair of deep, deep heresies. First, I am certain that Abraham Lincoln was the greatest American who ever lived. By a good measure. Second, and maybe even worse, given my heritage, I’m convinced that Ulysses Grant was the premier general, on either side, of the Civil War. I know. I welcome your emphatic correspondence.
But it’s not just me. William Tecumseh Sherman wrote, famously, that: “If the name of Washington is allied with the birth of our country, that of Grant is forever identified with its preservation.” After the general and subsequent president died, Frederick Douglass would note: “to him, more than any other man” Black Americans “owe (their) enfranchisement.”
Mark Twain said Grant was “the greatest man I ever had the privilege of knowing personally, I have not known a man with a kinder nature or a purer character.” “How and where he was so much larger than other men, I cannot describe.” Twain could not help but wonder “whereabouts in that (small) figure does (the) imperial power reside?”
Grant was modest and soft-spoken. He carried no interest in pomp and flourish. He had neither the time nor the inclination. Besides, his task was too large, too astounding. He was all steel, no pretense. He was famously calm and resolute in battle – impossible to fluster. He demonstrated a singular confidence and determination; accompanied by unflagging honesty and humility. “He habitually wears an expression as if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall, and was about to do it,” an observer noted. Lincoln said, more simply, when pressured to remove him, “I can’t spare this man; he fights.”
So where is all this going?
In the PBS docuseries Grant, Princeton scholar Allen Guelzo described some of Grant’s early meetings with officers as he moved from the war’s western campaign to Virginia. They were surprised at his appearance, “he looked like a delivery man.” That is, until they met his eyes. Then “suddenly you knew he was totally in charge of everything.”
Guelzo reports one clerk was advised: “When Grant gives you a straight order, obey it. When you have information for Grant, give it to him straight. And above all, don’t say ‘Sir’ too much. Grant’s not interested in that.”
Read more Which Charlotte dive bars have the best food? Here’s a taste of the Top 10
Don’t say ‘Sir’ too much. Imagine.
There are plenty of things to detest about the president of the United States. This is a small one. I’ll concede it doesn’t approach his corruption, his dishonesty, his cruelty, his bigotry, his wild and relentless illegality.
But it drives me nuts that Donald Trump constantly, habitually, definingly, says, in one version or another: “And they said to me, Sir…” as he reports, or lies about, almost any interaction with another human being. If Grant didn’t want to be bothered with ‘Sir,’ Trump seems to live for it. He revels in the concession of subservience, of inequality. In the admission of a sort of feudalism.
And, God knows, he seems to get it. From Republicans, from the leaders of supplicant nations, from fawning cabinet members, from heads of universities, from network CEOs, from tech “giants” and everyone else terrified by his vile caprice.
I’d just like to note how un-American this is. This is the land of no masters, no servants, no lords, no gentry. We are not to bow, no matter how much someone’s hideous insecurity demands it. We’re equals, even if Trump doesn’t believe it.
Contributing columnist Gene Nichol is a professor of law at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
This story was originally published September 3, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline “Donald Trump’s un-American infatuation with ‘Sir’ | Opinion.”
Read more This Charlotte diner holds strong amid 4 decades of growth. What I got for $20
