Donald Trump, at this point, is grasping at straws. After two days of rants about the anonymous op-ed printed by The New York Times, written by a “senior White House official,” his biggest wish today is surely that if he pivots to pushing other stories in the media, the worst might go away. Privately, he’s said to be absolutely furious and panicked, but publicly, he seems slightly more subdued…for now.
Relying on the old “how dare black Americans peacefully protest?” rant, since its easy to convince a racist fanbase that the protests are personal attacks against their patriotism instead of focusing on the disproportionate rates of police violence experienced by black Americans, is a sure bet for Trump. He can also, with this focus, continue to highlight all of his pretend business acumen, since who would know better than a fake business tycoon what is good and bad for a business to do?
Nike’s stock is not falling. It’s rising, and the right-wing boycott seems to be dying just as quickly as it began, just as their boycotts against Starbucks and Keurig did. The rise can be attributed to two things: the public support for Colin Kaepernick’s protest and the millions of dollars in free advertising Nike has been given by Trump’s endless rants.
Trump’s copy/paste endorsements of Republican candidates has, at this point, become a predictable joke. Crime! Military! Veterans! Border! Trump doesn’t really know anything about these candidates, but he can copy old endorsements and plug in a new name and move on. What that impersonal kind of endorsement will actually do for the GOP candidates in November is yet to be seen, but the polls do not seem to be swinging in their favor for now.
While the president may not want to keep that op-ed in the public dialogue for now, he is still ranting about the Bob Woodward book Fear: Trump in the White House. Woodward quotes Trump as calling Attorney General Jeff Sessions “mentally retarded” and his commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, “past your prime.”
It’s unclear which particular speaking style Trump is denying, because he certainly did win the presidency by name-calling and insulting others. Trump claimed when the quotes went public that he doesn’t use the word “retarded,” and of course someone found video of him using the word as an insult on Howard Stern’s radio show.
Quotes from Trump’s public certainly don’t prove Woodward wrong or make Trump look better than he was portrayed, either. For instance, there’s this quote from the president’s recent rally in Indiana:
‘Last week, you saw it, I was in the great state of West Virginia. We were in a fantastic arena, beautiful, smaller than this, but a very great place. We had crowds that were incredible. And the enthusiasm, I hate to tell you, the enthusiasm that you have tonight, in West Virginia, it was exactly the same. Can’t get any more, right? And the failing New York Times, which, by the way, if I wasn’t here, those — they would be out of business, the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN. So a writer for the New York Times that pretends she knows what she’s talking about — hasn’t got a clue — and I’m telling you, the enthusiasm was the same. The place was packed. She made the statement that President Trump was disappointed to see some empty chairs. Yeah, they were going to the bathroom, maybe.’
Can a writer truly make Trump look any worse as an orator than he really is?
Twitter wasn’t having any of Trump’s nonsense. See some of their comments below:
Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license
