If the only reason for this is to distract from the Epstein situation, Trump must be fairly terrified of what might make it to the front page if he thinks it warrants a distraction like being openly racist.
I’m waiting for him to shoot the Fed chair on the floor of the Senate once the actual pedophilia allegations come out.
He’s absolutely part of a lot of news agencies’ current profit model, but don’t give him credit for something he hasn’t done. He hasn’t made them more money than they’ve ever had ($-adjusted for inflation and all that).
They’re protecting declining news revenue, so they’re worried about killing off more predictably steady news-views that they get from racist clowns, because there’s less money from traditional streams.
It’s fear of further starvation, not record surplus.
Elaine Chow’s there because she’s a longstanding part of the GOP machine, plus she’s married to Mitch McConnell. Letting her have a Cabinet position keeps Mitch happy and firmly in line.
Oh man, that Fox & Friends clip, though. What’s-his-butt on the right calling Trump the Comedian in Chief and jibing about what people will make of this saying:
“This is real life. This isn’t social media, just having fun, trying to rile people up. This is real life. The words you say have real life consequences. I think that needs to be taken into consideration.”
Are You Listening to Yourself?!
I think the reason is easier and in a lot of ways more depressing than that. A lot of the readership of the major media outlets in this country are pretty racist. Openly admitting that some speech crosses that line risks alienating some percentage of their readership that regularly sits on the other side of that line.
Good call. The over the top nature of these tweets suggests that whatever it is he wants buried is a big deal. Perhaps he understands enough to see that Epstein is that big deal. Or are evangelicals cool with the sexual abuse of children?
The truth is an absolute defense against libel
This is the headline I want to see: “Twitter account of ‘least racist person you are ever going to meet’ is suspected to have been hacked for the purposes of falsely attributing objectively racist content to the president. We are seeking clarification from the White House at this time about the identity of the hacker.”
I think someone can be ignorant, shallow, near illiterate and scheming. His skill set has long been to be incredibly obnoxious, belligerent and greedy, with no regard for the law or common decency, then be the loudest voice in the room shamelessly claiming victimhood. Roy Cohn was his teacher. He especially has the skill set to pick fights with brown people and position himself as the more American, which conveniently garners the support of racists.
ETA:
“Counterpunching” has been described as a primary talent of Trump. By issuing broadsides against potentially polarizing individuals, he’s hoping they, or one of their allies, says something that his meme-meisters can spin into something vaguely anti-american, anti-conservative. The same way that when Clinton, correctly, called a certain segment of Trump’s supporters deplorable, it helped Trump.
Insert, “it’s all just jokes you don’t understand meme”
Playing the victim is core to his whole ethos though…
When his strongman bluffs are called he’s always claiming to be the victim of the evil media slandering him.
The safety of an opinion piece.
What we need to do is humiliate him publicly.
Make him look weak. Make him look pathetic. Make him look like a laughingstock.
Honestly, all we need to do is hustle him, get him to play a round of golf against tiger woods, televised so he can’t cheat.
Hey, and sorry in advance to do this, but you know what just occurred to me? What if the GOP tries on a national/federal level to do to the next president what they did in Wisconsin to its Gov? What if they were to succeed?
this is one of those “same thing from a different angle” observations, but i was thinking how nice it was that so MANY reporters and people in government on twitter were FINALLY straight-up calling it a racist tweet, and him a racist.
Media: “We’re the last bastion of truth in a post-truth society.”
Also media: “We use mealy-mouthed euphemisms because we’re too scared to call it like it is.”
Aside from how despicable it is to say “go back where you came from” to foreign born (or in trump’s idiotic case, American born) persons, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was born less than 10 miles from where trump was born.
Yeah, it’s two-pronged. On one hand it’s racist to say “go back where you came from” to recent immigrants. On the other, Trump just doesn’t think people with non-pale skin are real Americans.
What do you bet that comments that AOC was born in America are met with demands for a birth certificate? (Maybe AOC was born in Kenya too!)
And born of two American-born parents.
Unlike Trump, whose mother was an immigrant, and who is married to an immigrant.
Weird, I keep thinking about this other autocratic ruler from about 80 years ago who stirred up a lot of hatred and anger by yelling about people who were no better than animals or rats unlike the good, strong, well-bred people of the country, except that he himself was far more like the people he professed to hate than the people who he claimed to be in support of…
Oh. Phew. Does that also mean a man can’t have sexist motives if he has a female wife? This really clears it up.
/s
