President-elect Donald Trump is famous for firing workers; it's part of his brand. He has taken this to the next level in a pattern of attacking ordinary people for doing their jobs. This behavior runs contrary to his promise to be a president for working people. His rhetoric has inspired real and serious threats, and physical attacks, from overzealous supporters, but he remains silent or encouraging toward this behavior.
Edgar Maddison Welch walked into a Washington, D.C., restaurant, Comet Ping Pong, and fired shots from an AR-15 rifle in response to conspiracy theories that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring out of the restaurant. Bartenders, wait staff and other employees had to act quickly to get their customers to safety. Trump has said nothing about this incident.
After the first presidential debate, Trump took to Twitter to denounce moderator Megyn Kelly after she asked a serious question inspired by Trump's history of saying derogatory things about women. Rather than just taking her to task for the question, he condemned her overall work, charging that she had really "bombed" during the debate. He would continue to attack her and many other journalists throughout his campaign.
Trump mocked the appearance of a reporter who was covering one of his rallies. Serge Kovaleski has arthrogryposis, a condition that limits the movement of the joints and weakens the muscles. Trump has such a lengthy record of going after journalists that it will take you quite a while to read all of the insults that The New York Times collected.
Trump hasn't limited his attacks to journalists and celebrities, either. While debating Hillary Clinton, Trump personally insulted the work of an architect who was present in the audience. Trump had refused to pay the architect for work he had already done, saying "Maybe he didn’t do a good job and I was unsatisfied with his work." This is part of a long history of Trump not paying for services rendered and publicly demeaning those who challenge him when he refuses to pay them. This even extended to Trump refusing to pay his own campaign's pollsters.
The most recent attack to make headlines was when Trump personally attacked Chuck Jones, the president of the United Steelworkers local that represents the Carrier workers in Indiana. Chuck Jones had spoken out in the media to correct the record about the outsourcing and job loss at Carrier. The attacks from Trump and his supporters were so insulting that the defense of Chuck Jones went viral on Twitter with the hashtag #ImWithChuck.
These types of attacks from Trump and his supporters are not presidential. They are particularly disgraceful coming from a president-elect who claims to be on the side of workers.