Trump’s Attempts to Shape Public Opinion Are Getting Tiresome and Predictable
Donald Trump launched an early Friday morning tweetstorm, pumping out seven tweets in 44 minutes. The president-elect has apparently decided to use Twitter nearly every morning to try to shape the day’s news and project his paranoid-laced version of reality onto the American public.
Friday morning Trump rehashed the Russian dossier published by Buzzfeed that he already had dismissed during his disastrous Wednesday press conference. Any other politician or public figure would have let it go, saying they’ve commented and have no need to bring it up again, but Trump just can’t let things go.Â
Calling the charges in the dossier “phony,” of course, Trump twisted the story, calling it “made up facts by sleazebag political operatives,” and, as he has from the very start, “FAKE NEWS!”
But even worse, the president-elect, the soon-to-be Commander-in-Chief defended himself once again by placing Russia on a pedestal and positioning Putin as the arbiter of truth: “Russia says nothing exists.”
The dossier that contains what Trump calls “fake news” is a 35-page memo published by Buzzfeed which CNN reports was written by retired British intelligence officer Chris Steele. CNN’s early Friday morning report by those who have worked with him describes him by saying “one should not question his integrity, excellence and diligence in intelligence work. He knows Russia exceptionally well and has relationships and experience in the country to support this type of analysis.”
Trump goes on to once again attack and denigrate the entire intelligence community, all the men and women who work in America’s 17 intelligence agencies, some risking their lives to help keep Americans safe. And he accomplished it by once again putting the word intelligence in scare quotes, “intelligence,” as if it’s not real, as if their work is not real, not credible, not hard-fought, not to be trusted, made-up, fake news.
But Trump wasn’t satisfied yet. His next target, Hillary Clinton, and his own illegitimacy.
“What are Hillary Clinton’s people complaining about with respect to the F.B.I.” he asks, without even a question mark, referring to Thursday’s bombshell news the Dept. of Justice is opening an investigation into possible misdeeds by FBI Director Comey. Trump again attacks Clinton as “guilty as hell,” which was stunning during the campaign, but now, as the president-elect who is pretending to already be president, it’s chilling – and quite possibly, some might think, possibly libelous, given the FBI’s pronouncement that she isn’t guilty of anything, except perhaps carelessness.
Clinton, it bears repeating, won the popular vote by nearly 3 million more votes than Donald Trump. Only about 80,000 votes across three states separated her from winning the White House. That’s almost as close as it’s ever gotten.Â
Trump will be taking office in seven days with a 37 percent approval rating, possibly the lowest of any president to do so. But rather than remember that, he’s pretending to have a mandate. What he will have is the Oval Office and a public already tired of his antics, and a vice president many of his supporters and opponents alike like better. He should remember that.
You can respond directly to Donald Trump by sending your comments to him on Twitter: @realDonaldTrump
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Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC licenseÂ