I have been mad at Joe Biden for forever.
I’m the kind of person who remembers that he called Obama “articulate and clean” for a Black candidate, that he let Clarence Thomas escape during confirmation hearings, and that Biden bragged as recently as 2019 that white supremacists really liked him as a Senate colleague. In short: I am not now and have never been impressed.
But as the President launches his reelection campaign, I am here to tell you that we have to let him win.
We shouldn’t try to get fellow Democrats to rally for separate candidacies, or throw their weight behind token opposition. We shouldn’t call for debates or feel shortchanged by the political goliath that is incumbency. I don’t say that because I care about Joe Biden. It’s because I care about the Democratic Party.
Many of us youngins came to politics of our own volition. We were pulled into self-governance by the lure of a candidate or campaign that really spoke to us. We live and die on that candidate; we learn the nuances of campaigns from their survival or collapse; we figure out our own political priorities through following or volunteering or connecting with their candidacy. But we don’t learn any history.
So as someone raised in politics, let me throw some out at you. Because my support for Joe Biden’s campaign has nothing to do with Joe himself and everything to do with Ronald Reagan.
To start at the beginning: It is 1974 and Gerald Ford has just taken over as POTUS because Richard Nixon resigned. Ronald Reagan is the popular conservative governor of California (yeah), who has been encouraged to run for president before. He passed because, well, Nixon was an obvious winner. But in 1976, he takes his shot against incumbent Gerry Ford.
It’s a brutal primary. Even though Ford prevails, he’s badly damaged heading into November, especially with the unpopular Nixon pardon hanging around his neck. He loses to Jimmy Carter.
Four years later — after stagflation, an oil embargo, and a hostage crisis — Carter is the incumbent under fire. Ted Kennedy (yup) takes a shot at unseating him. There are a lot of problems with Ted Kennedy’s run (not least that he couldn’t answer why he was running), but the biggest might be how he hurt Carter in his ultimate race against the easily triumphant Ronald Reagan.
While the final results in 1980 look like an obvious blowout, it’s not entirely that simple. Reagan won just over half of the popular vote (50.7 percent), while Carter’s support fell out at 41 percent. It turns out that getting attacked from both sides is a super terrible way to rally voters. And while Reagan’s win might have been inevitable – what with the illegal coordination with foreign nationals to influence domestic politics (ahem) – Carter’s loss is still a textbook example of why you don’t attack incumbents.
So no, I don’t like Joe Biden and probably never will. I didn’t vote for him last primary season and definitely prefer the idea of an alternative. But I’m behind his reelection campaign 100%, no holds barred. Because I have learned from American political history, and I have no interest in repeating it.
Joe Biden had a message for the nation, and it was: The aviators are back, baby! For those of us who remember Uncle Joe’s VP days, his State of the Union address was a vintage performance. He was folksy; he was charming; he was assertive, and with the Republican congressional delegation acting like 7 year olds on sugar. He was the adult in the room.
The heckling from the GOP was the highlight of the night, from the loud and deeply meme-able Marjorie Taylor Greene in her Cruella phase to multiple people calling Biden a murderer as he described the impact of fentanyl deaths. You’d think that after the public humiliation of that interminable Speaker vote and their comical debt ceiling threats, congressional Republicans would at least try to fake sober statecraft to improve their standing. Instead, they were so raucous and wild that Ole Joe Biden was running rings around them on national television.
At one point, as Republicans shouted at him for calling out their plans to cut Social Security and Medicare in order to successfully shrink the national budget, Biden goaded them into an internationally-broadcast agreement via standing ovation not to touch the programs in any budget deal. T’was some masterful shit. And it was perfectly timed for Biden, because exposing the GOP for what they are helped distract from what he’s not.
Despite the theatrics of his opponents, Uncle Joe provided little more than tweaks to the status quo. Long minutes were spent (rightly) excoriating major companies and wealthy individuals for hoarding cash and profits at a high cost to society, but vanishingly few specifics were offered on how this will change. Biden generated thunderous Democratic applause for capping the cost of insulin for everyone (not just seniors) and expanding Medicaid, but said little to nothing about expiring COVID support from the federal government or the calamitous impact the virus has had on our so-called healthcare system. And even as the Dobbs decision provided the animating force to neutralize the factors of an anticipated “red wave,” abortion was a blink-and-you-miss-it moment in Biden’s national address.
So in a way, this successful State of the Union was a display of Biden at his best and his worst. He gave as good as he got to an out-of-pocket GOP, but was giving nothing, honey, to the base. But whether you’re cheering him for reveling in Republican rowdiness or disappointed in his reticent refusal of radicalism, one thing was made very clear last night: Joe Biden is here to stay.
My Jewish identity has been a huge part of my life since I was born. I was lucky enough to grow up somewhere with a large Jewish community. I went to a Jewish summer camp, participated in youth groups, and now go to a college with a relatively large Jewish population. So, while I grew up aware of antisemitism, I’m privileged in that my own experiences of it have been pretty limited.
Unfortunately, this is not super common for American Jews. As the Anti-Defamation Leauge (ADL) reported, antisemitic attacks are only becoming more frequent across the United States. In 2019, a recorded 2,107 anti-semitic incidents took place across the country. This was a 12 percent rise from the year before and the highest number since the ADL began recording.
Antisemitism is widespread across both major parties in the United States. Sometimes, it seems like attacks on Jewish people are coming from all sides. While we would expect a normal president to denounce all types of hate, including antisemitism, this isn’t the case with Trump. Instead, he covers up his antisemitic policies and behaviors with pro-Israel policy.
For his entire presidency, Donald Trump has leaned on being “good for American Jews” because he is “good for Israel.” This week alone, during an annual pre-Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) call with Jewish leaders, Trump said, “We really appreciate you… we love your country also.”
I'm American. https://t.co/bWUCJBDSKR
— Sam Vinograd (@sam_vinograd) September 16, 2020
This isn’t the first time he has said something like this. Over the last several years, Trump has repeatedly implied that Jewish Americans should be grateful for his actions in the Middle East and his strengthened ties with the current Israeli Prime Minister. And, peace is a great thing, no matter who the President is, part of their job is helping further peace plans whenever possible. My problem isn’t with that, and honestly, I’m not even here to write about conflicts in the Middle East.
My problem is that when Trump views Jewish Americans’ electoral support as tied to Israel, he is perpetuating the idea of ‘dual loyalty.’ The concept of dual loyalty is an antisemitic dog whistle that implies that Jewish people are inherently disloyal and place the global Jewish community over the countries in which they live. In the United States, it is used to imply that American Jews can’t be 100% loyal to America because some of their loyalty is owed to Israel or the international Jewish community.
Trump’s attempts to win Jewish people’s electoral support are all based on the extremely reductive assumption that American Jews’ top policy concern is Israel. While it may be the case for some members of the Jewish community, it certainly isn’t true for everyone. By only attempting to appeal to Jewish voters through Middle Eastern policy, the Trump administration actively ignores dangerous forms of antisemitism in America.
White supremacy and antisemitism are inextricable from each other. We all remember what Donald Trump said after the Unite The Right rally in 2017: “you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.” Many of the “very fine people” that Trump was talking about were carrying Nazi flags and shouting, “Jews will not replace us.”
Throughout his presidency, Trump has clung to white supremacists’ support, endorsed their actions, and continuously given them platforms. The most recent example of this is Trump’s embracing of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which has blatantly anti-semitic roots. The theory pushes the narrative that the Rothschild family holds control of every bank in America and alleges that a secret ‘elite’ class dominates other important industries such as the media.
A few weeks ago, when asked about the conspiracy group, Trump said, “I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate.” This is just another case of Trump not only dismissing dangerous antisemitism, but giving it a platform.
American Jews are not a monolithic group, and we care about a lot of things. Like I said, the top priority for some Jewish people may be the state of Israel, and that’s ok. However, it is neither mine nor many of the Jewish voters I talk to. In fact, around 75% of Jewish voters supported Hillary Clinton in the last election, and Jewish voters consistently make up a large Democratic party base.
This baffles Trump, who, despite his claims of being a great ally to the Jewish community, said that he thinks that if “any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat — it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”
If the President actually cared about Jewish voters, he would stop perpetuating the incredibly dangerous narrative of dual loyalty and denounce white supremacy. But, I’m not really holding my breath.
While it’s no All Too Well or, even, Cruel Summer, since Folklore came out last week, I’ve listened to the song Mad Woman too many times to count. I then went back and made an entire Spotify playlist with songs about being gaslit because, tbh, I’m kind of going through it right now.
Obviously, songs like Mad Woman always hit differently, but, around my 15th listen, I also happened to be scrolling through Twitter when I saw one too many Trump tweets and started to get, like, really angry. Then I remembered that the Trump campaign and most of the GOP is relying on the same gaslighting tactics as every boy Taylor writes about and the all of the f*ckboys I’ve *almost* dated.
Before I get ahead of myself, gaslighting is a form of manipulation that makes someone feel like they’re actually crazy, forcing them to invalidate their own thoughts and feelings. While it’s most common in interpersonal and romantic relationships, it can happen at a wider scale, like when the president gaslights his entire country.
Here are a few examples of talking points that they use to gaslight Americans:
“The Radical Left”
The Radical Left Democrats: First they try to take away your guns. Then they try to take away your police!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2020
Donald Trump, everyone who works at Fox, and most of the Republican party have latched onto the phrase “radical left” over the last several years. They tend to like using it as a description of most of the policies that the Democratic party supports and advocates for. As someone who studied politics in London for a semester and hasn’t shut up about it, it’s really important that we deconstruct the myth that a “radical left” exists in America. “Radical left” policies like increased access to healthcare and gun control are commonplace in most countries. In many, they’re even seen as the bare minimum.
While political commentators like to talk about the fact that American parties are more polarized – or further apart – than ever. This narrative implies that the Democratic and Republican parties have moved left and right, respectively, at the same rate.
This is absolutely not the case, as demonstrated by this New York Times article from last year. The Democrats certainly have moved to the left, but the GOP has moved much further right at a quicker rate, leaving Democrats way closer to the center than the Republican party.
The term “radical left” is really just a way to force the left to concede on important legislation and aspects of the Democratic party’s platform.
It’s also worth considering that the fear of having a candidate that was seen as radical is part of the reason we went from the youngest, most diverse field in history to picking an old white guy for a nominee (love you, Joe!).
IDK about anyone else, but this has direct parallels to the guy who told me I was being crazy and controlling when I said I’d appreciate it if he maybe stopped hooking up with other girls, please? Like, I was really asking for a bare minimum level of respect, but to him, it was “moving too fast, and it was way too much!”
IDK!? I just feel like whether it’s from guys or politicians, we shouldn’t have to beg for the bare minimum.
“They’re Taking Away Our Rights”
THANK YOU to the 5 million members of the @NRA for once again entrusting me with your FULL & COMPLETE ENDORSEMENT! As long as I am President, I will ALWAYS protect our Great Second Amendment, and never let the Radical Left take away your Rights, your Guns, or your Police! @NRAPVF https://t.co/8ZhChqxgBI
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 17, 2020
Let’s go back to things like gun control for a hot sec to talk about rights. Conservatives love to use the Second Amendment to push back on arguments for increased gun control. While I’m not going to fully get into this debate because I can only dedicate one or two of the very few brain cells I have left to this, I want to point out what the actual amendment says.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
So, the Second Amendment was written and ratified in 1789, when our country was literally brand new. We didn’t have a legitimate army, in fact, part of the motivation behind the Second Amendment was that the founders were nervous about the country having a strong standing army like Britain’s. They were worried that a standing army would limit citizens’ rights. There would always be a looming threat that the federal government could deploy against its citizens.
If you think this sounds like anything that might be happening around the country today? You’re right. But, I digress.
The argument that gun control is taking away Second Amendment rights reminds me of a guy who likes to revise history and change the meanings of words mid-fight. You know, the kind who says, “just because I said I really liked you, slept over every other night for two months, and brought you to my grandpa’s 94th birthday party doesn’t mean I had feelings for you, I thought you knew that.”
“This Is What Joe Biden’s America Will Look Like”
Joe Biden and the Radical Left want to Abolish Police, Abolish ICE, Abolish Bail, Abolish Suburbs, Abolish the 2nd Amendment – and Abolish the American Way of Life. No one will be SAFE in Joe Biden’s America!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 15, 2020
You may have noticed a new round of Trump ads that depict what he thinks America will look like under a Biden presidency. These ads have footage of protests, riots, and violence that have all happened during the Trump presidency. The ads also falsely say that Biden is in favor of defunding the police despite him saying the opposite in several interviews.
These ads are the same as saying “seriously, I can’t believe you’re upset about the way I talk to you, it could be so much worse. It’s not like I’m manipulating or lying to you, all I did was say it’s psycho that you told your friends about me and punched a hole in the wall.”
While we’re on the subject, let’s touch upon how Trump gaslights his own base. It cracks me up that his supporters keep walking around with MAGA hats as if Trump’s campaign didn’t briefly try to use “Keep America Great.”
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2020
MAGA gives his base a goal and a fictional enemy, completely distracting from the reality that over the last almost four years, Trump has accomplished almost nothing he promised his supporters he has, and America is further from ‘greatness’ than it has been in quite a long time.
“Mail-In Ballots Lead to Fraud”
There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020
This is one of the more dangerous examples of manipulation by the Trump campaign, and one Twitter flagged as misleading. In a typical year, somewhere around 20% of Americans vote either by mail or through absentee ballot (spoiler alert: they’re literally the same thing). Though this 20% includes the Trump family and most of his administration, Trump has recently picked safe, mail-in ballots, as his new enemy. He has called them unsafe and said that they would put us at further risk of election tampering. More candidly, he expressed fear that expansion of early voting and vote by mail means that “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
Multiple studies have shown that not only is voting by mail safe, but it is proven to favor neither party. However, in a normal year, in-person voting serves as a barrier to many people getting to cast their ballots at all, and, in a pandemic, this will obviously be worsened. What Trump really is saying is that when people who may not ordinarily get to vote are given the option and when more people vote in general, Republicans often lose. (He has also openly said this.)
Here, we’re being told not to trust an institution that is not only very trustworthy but vital to the functioning of democracy. It’s like being told that your friend is lying to you and jealous after telling a significant other that the same friend saw them cheating on you or pointed out your significant other’s problematic behavior.
Personally, I think that these manipulation tactics coming from elected officials impact women in different ways than they do men. Women are often gaslit by their significant others, co-workers, family members, and even friends. While some women do the gaslighting, we are more likely to be on the receiving end.
When these tactics become commonplace in daily interactions, they can have devastating psychological impacts. According to Psychology Today, over time, a victim of gaslighting will stop trusting their own judgment, over apologize, question their knowledge or memory, and have difficulties making decisions.
Gaslighting is just one of many forms of emotional abuse and manipulation that society conditions women to accept and that we see in our political world. Last week, AOC was verbally attacked in front of the media, our president regularly comments on female politicians and reporters’ looks, the list of misogyny in politics goes on and on. All of these things are connected to one another.
The idea that Trump is a misogynistic, manipulative narcissist who uses gaslighting for political power is not new at all, but it’s getting worse. The effects of gaslighting by Trump and his cronies have already impacted the 2020 election and will continue doing so.
Just like our toxic exes, Trump probably won’t change, so it’s up to us to be aware of what he is doing and dump his ass on November third.
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I’m not sure 2020 has been a good year for anyone, but some people are still determined to make the most of it. I, for one, remain super impressed with Gen-Z’s dedication to trolling Donald Trump, repeatedly using TikTok and other methods at their disposal to rain on his sh*tty parade time after time. Finally, there is hope for the future.
As you may recall, the TikTok teens, along with the good samaritans of K-Pop Twitter, banded together last month to massively inflate attendance expectations for Trump’s big return to the campaign trail in Tulsa. The arena was mostly empty, the photos were glorious, and everyone had fun. But since then, the teens have still been hard at work coming up with new and exciting ways to mess with Trump.
This week, it was reported that the Trump administration wants to ban TikTok in the United States. According to Trump, banning the app (which originated in China) would be a way for our country to retaliate against China for giving us the coronavirus. Sounds unbelievable, but at this point, is anyone surprised that Trump wants to do something like this? But on top of wanting to punish China, it seems like Trump might want to put a stop to the Zoomers using TikTok against him.
Of course, these kids aren’t going down without a fight. In response to Trump’s threats to delete their favorite app, they hatched a plan to delete his favorite app: the official Trump 2020 campaign app. According to the people of TikTok, Apple’s App Store has a quality control policy where any app that has an average rating of one star gets removed. It’s questionable whether or not this policy actually exists, but we can play along for now. Basically, the plan is to spam Trump’s app with as many one-star ratings as possible, so the average drops, and his app will be removed from the App Store.
omg guys.. it would be so bad if we got the app store to delete trumps app definitely do NOT leave a one star review that would be so bad could u imagine pic.twitter.com/kHcidOR1H8
— 𝙜𝙞𝙖⁷ (@FL0WERH0YA) July 9, 2020
While it’s unclear if this will actually work, the app has been flooded with thousands of negative reviews, and the app’s average rating currently sits at an abysmal 1.2 stars. But it’s not just the TikTokers ruining the app’s score—a quick scroll of the reviews suggests that the app might just suck in general. One reviewers wrote “I downloaded this app to keep up with when the rallies were. I’m devastated to say that this app took hours to load.” Damn, “devastated” is a strong word, but that’s so rough. Other sincere reviews note frustration with the fact that the app requires you to register an account and share your location services. GTFO, Trump!
But there are also plenty of less serious reviews that are funny as f*ck. One reviewer complained that they “downloaded this app to hopefully improve my spray tan skills,” but were disappointed to realize that “is NOT what this app is for AT ALL.” So misleading, honestly. Another claimed that the app took 69 days to download (nice), then filled their camera roll with unwanted pictures of bare feet. Gotta love all this creativity coming from America’s youth.
The current attack on Trump’s app reviews might seem creative, but it’s actually not the first time Gen-Z has used this same tactic. Back in April, as schools across the country transitioned to at-home instruction, the reviews for the widely-used Google Classroom app were similarly flooded with negativity, with such insightful comments as “I don’t wanna do work during lockdown.” The app’s average rating currently sits at 1.5 stars, which seems high when compared with the Trump app, but it was never removed from the App Store.
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that Apple will remove the Trump 2020 app, but all these 1-star reviews are still good for a laugh. If you’re feeling particularly stressed about the upcoming election (same), feel free to go leave a sh*tty review just as a way to vent. Let it out sweetie, put it in the book App Store.
Images: Frederic Legrand – COMEO / Shutterstock.com; flowerhoya / Twitter; App Store
Claudia Conway has entered the chat.
The Conway family is well known for their political division, with Kellyanne serving as a senior counsel to the president and her husband, George III serving as an advisor to the anti-Trump Lincoln Project and constantly tweeting that the president is unfit for office. Basically, they’re like the Romeo and Juliet of American politics. Their star crossed love story aside, at the end of the day, both are registered as Republicans.
Typically, when the Conways are in the news, it tends to be because George III responded to something horrible that the White House did and is directly opposing his wife. However, this time, a new family member is at the center of focus.
Claudia Conway, the 15-year-old daughter of Kellyanne and George has been going viral with her Tik Tok activity. To be VERY CLEAR, I didn’t have it on my 2020 bingo card, but looks like I am Claudia Conway’s newest fan.
Like many other members of gen-z who are too young to vote in 2020, Claudia is using Tik Tok to advocate for the causes she believes in and help mobilize older Tik Tok users to vote. Many of Claudia’s Tik Toks feature her advocating for the BLM movement, speaking up against toxic masculinity, actively advocating against Trump, and supporting Black content creators.
She also uses Instagram as a platform for activism. She has shared several posts advocating for mental health awareness, the BLM movement, and taking precautionary safety measures seriously in the pandemic. Here she is lipsyncing over a sound questioning why pro-life people who consider abortion murder to fail to raise the alarm when Black Americans are killed in public. And here, she mocks Trump fans who can’t handle being criticized for supporting a dictatorial white supremacist (ok, our words.)
As her social media accounts have grown more and more popular over the last day, she has made her message to both supporters and haters very clear: it is important to educate yourself and speak truth to power.
Not only is Claudia a great example of how younger people are using the app to participate in a political system that they are not yet old enough to formally contribute to, but she is totally badass for sharing her opinions. She has explained, several times, that even though her parents are famous conservative politicians she still works hard to form her own, educated opinions, even if they contradict that of her parents. She also has been very clear that just because they differ in opinions does not mean they love each other any less. I know how draining it can be to have a ~spirited conversation~ over tough issues with loved ones who disagree with you, and I literally couldn’t imagine being in Claudia’s shoes.
Claudia is only one of many gen-z Tik Tokers who are using the platform for advocacy and to troll Trump. Over the last month, advocacy on Tik Tok has skyrocketed. Creators are making catchy songs to explain systemic racism, to expose injustices in the political system, and explain the importance of registering to vote. Between tricking Trump’s campaign store to thinking that they’re out of merch to flooding a meet and greet raffle with fake submissions, younger Americans are doing everything in their power to make sure the president doesn’t have four more years in office.
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As if there wasn’t enough going on in the world, one of America’s least favorite attention seekers decided now was the time to force himself into the spotlight. That’s right, former National Security Advisor to the Trump Administration, John Bolton decided that now was a good time to publish hs long-awaited book The Room Where It Happened – which, BTW, is a total rip off of Hamilton – and has been causing drama for, like, six months.
Last November, Bolton took to Twitter to start promoting his book, which is basically just a list of all of the shitty things Trump did while Bolton worked for him. Here’s the thing, Bolton obviously thought these crimes were serious enough to at least warrant writing a burn book, but still, he didn’t testify during the impeachment hearings.
While the book is set to come out next week, President Trump is losing his shit about being #exposed, so the Justice Department keeps trying to illegally come up with reasons to block it, either because it includes falsehoods or classified information — Trump can’t make up his mind.
In the epilogue of the book, Bolton apparently explains that the book has no classified information, and Trump is just upset because it “revealed information that can only be described as embarrassing to Trump or as indicative of possible impermissible behavior.”
A number of news outlets have tracked down advanced copies, which we have adapted as a Burn Book of sorts. Much like Regina George, John Bolton likes to write about crimes instead of reporting them.
Donald Trump Thought Finland Was Part Of Russia
Throughout the book, Bolton recounts private convos with Don over his 18 months of service. He claims Trump once asked former Chief of Staff John Kelly if Finland was part of Russia, if the UK had any nuclear weapons (yes), and raged about Pearl Harbor during discussions of Japan.
He also felt conflicted about supporting Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó over Nicolás Maduro because he didn’t think Guaidó was manly enough.
Donald Trump Became Obsessed With Sending The North Korean Dictator A Personalized Gift
Trump apparently regretted calling North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “ROCKETMAN” on Twitter and wanted to smooth things by delivering an autographed copy of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” on CD to prove it was actually a term of endearment.
Such a gift would violate U.S. sanctions against the authoritarian regime, but getting it “remained a high priority for several months,” Bolton writes. Un is a millennial, Don, he doesn’t want your Compact Disc.
Donald Trump Promised To Intervene In The Justice System To Give World Leaders Favorable Treatment
Bolton says that in 2018, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked Trump to look at a case involving a Turkish firm under investigation by a U.S. Attorney for violating Iranian sanctions.
Trump told Erdogan he would “take care of things” once he got Obama’s prosecutors out. Trump’s refusal to stand up to Erdogan also resulted in the U.S. removing troops from Syria, leaving our Kurdish allies in the dust.
Donald Trump Does Not Care About Human Rights
Bolton says that Trump told China’s leader that he approved of the construction of camps to detain the members of the country’s Uighur Muslim minority. Hundreds of thousands of Uighur Muslims have been held by the Chinese government for “re-education.”
Just this week, Trump signed a law calling for sanctions to punish Chinese officials for human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims.
Donald Trump Is A Cheater
Of course, the President has been trying to cheat in his elections with Ukraine and China. We all knew that ‘The Donald’ tried to extort Ukraine into helping him get dirt on his political opponent, namely Joe Biden’s son. Cheating is this President’s MO, so we shouldn’t be surprised that he took his moves over to China.
According to Bolton’s book, Trump asked Xi Jinping, the President of China, to promise that China would buy more produce from American farmers. This would raise his favorability among farmers because that would increase their income, and Trump would be tied to it, bettering his re-election chances.
Trump asks other leaders to help him win in return for support so often that we should come up with a name for it… maybe we could go with ‘quid pro quo?’
Donald Trump Is A Total Wanna-Be
Turns out that Donald “LAW AND ORDER!!!” Trump doesn’t believe that dictators and people in power should face legal consequences for illegal actions. Wild. We already knew Donald Trump is a massive fan of obstructing justice. In his book, Bolton says that Trump seems to have adopted “obstruction of justice as a way of life.”
Apparently, the President is a big fan of intervening in Justice Department investigations that target his friends. Trump is so disgustingly desperate to get approval from dictators across the globe that he will literally do anything to appease them. Two of the many examples of Trump obstructing justice include him trying to get Halkbank of Turkey and ZTE, a Chinese company, out of investigations over sanction violations.
Donald Trump Is Toxic AF
When “Mean Girls” taught us about the different high school cliques, they must have forgotten to include toxic assholes. Bolton’s book describes the White House work environment as overwhelmingly negative. He cites non-stop infighting between staffers who tear each other down to get the ear of the President. Like, is this the White House or a reality show? The answer is both.
While obviously, no one should have to work in that type of environment, I’m having a hard time feeling bad for Bolton. What else was he expecting when he took this job? Much like contestants on The Bachelor, I doubt the people working for Trump are there to make friends.
John Bolton is the Nastiest Skank Bitch I’ve Ever Met. DO NOT TRUST HIM.
Much like Regina George, the concept of irrelevance and being reduced to a lower social circle probably terrified John Bolton, prompting him to release his “tell-all book” and launch himself back into relevance. He certainly wasn’t motivated by what’s best for the public interest, because if he was, he would have released this information via congressional testimony during the impeachment hearings.
Bolton even covers the impeachment inquiry in his book, citing specific things he would have done differently or further explored if he was in charge. He spends 592 whole pages painting himself as a victim and an innocent bystander to Trump’s crimes as if he isn’t complicit in (at the very minimum) looking the other way.
Like, I appreciate the sentiment of publishing all of the crimes that Trump committed in office, but if Bolton actually cared about this country and getting him out of office, he had so many other opportunities to do so for free and in a more accessible way than this stupid book. At its core, this book is a pathetic attempt at revenge on the Trump administration.
Unlike Regina George, Bolton isn’t scattering the pages of his book for free and is charging, like, close to 20 dollars for it. F*cking classic. As much as we all love hearing about other people’s drama, especially when it comes to the President, let’s all make a collective agreement to not buy his book. Instead of spending the $20 on it, buy a book (or two or three) from a Black author. Personally, I’m in the middle of Symone Sanders’ book, and I’m a huge fan.
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Last Friday, as protestors across the country marched to demand an end to police brutality, where was our President? Giving an inspirational speech? Meeting with protest leaders to find a way forward? Marching in solidarity? LMAO, not a chance. Instead, Donald Trump went to the White House bunker on Friday night, where he spent nearly an hour. As protestors gathered outside the White House, Trump was criticized for hiding and tweeting angrily rather than actually addressing their concerns, but now he has an explanation—he just had to inspect the bunker!
In the past, the bunker, formally known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, has mostly been reserved for use during terrorist threats, like the 9/11 attacks. White House spokesman Judd Deere said, “The White House does not comment on security protocols and decisions,” so we don’t know exactly how many times the bunker has been used, but it’s generally meant for pretty serious situations. Considering that protests outside the White House last Friday were largely non-violent, the President’s trip to the bunker seemed a little dramatic.
But there’s another explanation! In a radio interview with Brian Kilmeade of Fox News on Wednesday, Trump said of his ~visit~ to the bunker, “I was there for a tiny, little, short period of time, and it was much more for an inspection.” He continued on about this inspection that definitely happened, saying “I’ve gone down two or three times, all for inspection. And you go there, someday you may need it. I went down; I looked at it.”
So, just by a show of hands, does anyone believe this sh*t? I mean, I’m sure someone has to inspect the bunker periodically, but there’s a zero percent chance that the President of the United f*cking States is personally responsible for that. And in case you don’t believe my hunch, the PEOC, specifically, is reportedly designed to withstand the force of a passenger jet crashing into the White House, which I have a feeling is not the kind of thing you can test by just “looking at it.”
The likelihood of Donald Trump just randomly visiting the bunker—let alone “inspecting” it— on a night when, according to the Associated Press, protests in Washington “sparked one of the highest alerts on the White House complex since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001” seems… low. And for a President who’s spent more than 250 days at golf clubs over the course of his Presidency (costing taxpayers more than $130 million), I really don’t buy that he’s doing some kind of important inspection on a Friday night. We know he was just hiding out.
Trump’s story about inspecting the bunker is an obvious attempt to make it seem like he’s not afraid of the protestors, but I think anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that’s not what’s really going on here. Trump is a coward and a liar, and he has a convenient habit of backtracking when something he says or does makes him look bad. Just this week, he received widespread backlash for his “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” tweet, but he tried to explain it away, saying it was “spoken as a fact,” and that generally “looting leads to shooting.” I don’t think anyone but his most fervent supporters actually believe this stuff, but in a situation as serious as this, his words still have the potential to do great harm.
We can’t say for sure how many people will believe the bunker inspection story, but according to a new poll this week from Reuters/Ipsos, the majority of Americans do not think the President is handling the protests well. While his overall approval rating sits at 39% (his lowest in six months), only 33% of respondents say they approve of Trump’s handling of the protests. Clearly, the majority of people are unimpressed with Donald Trump’s leadership right now, and lying about the bunker isn’t the way to make things better.
Images: Frederic Legrand – COMEO / Shutterstock.com
