Trump explodes in unhinged Twitter rampage after a supporter is shot and killed in Portland
Donald Trump woke up this morning to the news that a member of the far-right group Patriot Prayer who had been traveling with a caravan of his supporters in Portland, Oregon yesterday had been shot and killed.
The news inspired the president — who has yet to utter a word about the 2 people that another one of his supporters murdered just days earlier in Kenosha, Wisconsin — to launch into a barrage of dozens of tweets and retweets, around 90 in total, spewing invective towards the Democratic leadership in the northwestern city and bleating for “LAW & ORDER.”
Trump actually didn’t get to making any comments on yesterday’s shooting without first tweeting out a defense of his obviously vastly inadequate response to the COVID-19 pandemic by citing the words of praise that many state governors felt forced to offer to him in order to get any federal resources directed their way in a timely manner during the initial stages of the outbreak.
Everything a Governor asked the Federal Government for with respect to the Pandemic, they got. They all said, on tape, the Federal government did a great job. Governor Cuomo used the word “phenomenal.” The Task Force worked well with the States. Feds bailed out many States!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020
His next tweet, however, directly attacked Ted Wheeler, the Democratic mayor of Portland, for refusing his offer to return federal troops to the city, despite the fact that when a large contingent of poorly-identified federal forces descended on the city earlier in the unrest tensions escalated and violence flared further.
The big backlash going on in Portland cannot be unexpected after 95 days of watching and incompetent Mayor admit that he has no idea what he is doing. The people of Portland won’t put up with no safety any longer.The Mayor is a FOOL. Bring in the National Guard! https://t.co/bM6ypak94t
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020
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Trump punctuated his angry tweet with footnotes in the form of seven retweets exclusively from far-right luminaries like Charlie Kirk and others before weighing in with two more original posts that laid the blame for the local problem in Oregon with national Democratic leadership.
Our great National Guard could solve these problems in less than 1 hour. Local authorities must ask before it is too late. People of Portland, and other Democrat run cities, are disgusted with Schumer, Pelosi, and thier local “leaders”. They want Law & Order! https://t.co/f6LOKcf7BU
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020
Wheeler is incompetent, much like Sleepy Joe Biden. This is not what our great Country wants. They want Safety & Security, and do NOT want to Defund our Police! https://t.co/lZigDBjvKJ
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020
The president continued to blatantly lie about Joe Biden’s position on the defunding of police in this last post which has the audacity to accuse Ted Wheeler of incompetence so soon after bragging that his own inability to effectively deal with the coronavirus pandemic was “incredible” as he has often described it.
Trump was back to retweeting extremist right-wing voices and their coverage of the events in Portland, peppered with the occasional defense of his COVID-19 response, before aiming his rage at his favorite shibboleth: Antifa.
ANTIFA is a Radical Left group that only wants bad things for our Country. They are supported by $FOOLS! https://t.co/Be8avd2wPL
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020
Talk about coded dog whistles!
The inclusion of a dollar sign before the all-caps “FOOLS” is a fairly clear reference in right-wing circles to the supposed funding of left-wing activists by Jewish billionaire George Soros, a recurring fantasy in the anti-Semitic tropes in the extremist views of the far right.
Trump continued his retweets punctuated with the occasional comment to blame all the unrest on weak Democratic leadership rather than his own impotent actions when he’s not to busy playing golf.
Democrat “Leadership” has no clue. Request help now….Problem Over!!! https://t.co/Jifo9JwTD0
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020
Perhaps the best response to this last tweet would be: “Resign now….Problem Over!”
Disgraceful Anarchists. We are watching them closely, but stupidly protected by the Radical Left Dems! https://t.co/IvuIh6cRz5
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020
Such a stirring paean to free expression of one’s political beliefs and the strength of the First Amendment, one may sarcastically exclaim!
Trump demonstrated that his sympathies likely extended only to those deluded souls who still back his presidency enthusiastically enough to grabs their guns and hop in a caravan to disrupt demonstrations of anger over yet another killing of an unarmed Black man by trigger-happy police with his next original post.
GREAT PATRIOTS! https://t.co/BWGxVoBTmI
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020
Still, with all the weighty issues confronting him, Trump still had time to complain about the lack of college sports during the deadly pandemic that has killed over 182,000 Americans and has led many colleges that attempted to open to be forced to deal with campus outbreaks.
Play Football Big Ten! https://t.co/tlMFxv2mvx
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020
Trump’s next original tweet was part of what seemed to be a coordinated GOP response to the bevy of anti-Trump Republicans who have endorsed Joe Biden out of disgust with the president’s defiance of federal laws and presidential precedent.
Commenting on a post that claims C-Span was overwhelmed by callers claiming to be Democrats who were so overwhelmed by the coverage of the Republican National Convention that they were no staunch Trump supporters, the president hyped what was likely a disinformation campaign in an anecdotal and unverifiable account of self-identified respondents.
Thank you. We will not let them down! https://t.co/IOAVJpJji5
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020
Trump continued with his rampage of retweets, occasionally commenting on the posts he was forwarding on.
Tone down the language, but TRUE! https://t.co/CcdNwlLsb3
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020
Substitute Donald Trump for Ted Wheeler in Tiff’s tweet and you’d actually see the truth in Trump’s Twitter feed for a change.
After a few more Portland-themed retweets, the president turned to trying to spin polling data anyway except the dismal results that most major polling organizations have been reporting for weeks: that he is losing badly to Joe Biden in the hearts and minds of any American who hasn’t already fully imbibed the Trump Kool-Aid.
He even went so far as to cite Michael Moore’s fear-mongering plea to progressives that the support for Trump in the hinterlands still remains strong, endorsing Moore’s perceptiveness in the process.
Michael knows!!! https://t.co/QNuj5Y1PZc
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020
Trump ended his avalanche of cherry-picked polling data by posting a single poll that shows him leading Biden by three points nationally and by seven points in battleground swing states.
Moving along nicely. MAGA! https://t.co/xNchR73xgp
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020
Unfortunately for the president, the average of national polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight.com still has Biden leading by more than eight points and showed nary a single poll in the last week that indicates Trump leading in the presidential contest.
After that exhausting deluge of social media posts, Trump finally ended his Twiter binge with a summation of his campaign message — one that specifically harkens back to the politically polarized late 1960s and early 1970s era of Richard Nixon with an appropriated slogan.
LAW & ORDER!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020
Three exclamation points! He must really be counting on that message to resonate with his fear-based campaign.
Don’t be taken in by his propaganda. The only way to restore law & order in America is to rid ourselves of a president who believes he himself is above the law.
Check your registration and vote in the best manner available to you to evict Trump from the White House as soon as possible.
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