People who are less than enamored of Donald Trump probably got confused when they first saw his latest infamous Twitter spew Thursday morning. It was as though a) perhaps someone posted an old tweet from before he was elected POTUS or b) they had been sent back in time to the Before Times, when Trump's future was far from certain, because that tweet was jaw-droppingly un-fucking-presidential.
He was attempting to tear down Morning Joe cohost Mika Brzezinski by calling her "low IQ," "crazy," and recounting a most definitely made-up interaction between her, her cohost/now-fiancee Joe Scarborough and himself, during which he described Brzezinski as "badly bleeding from a face-lift" during a visit to Mar-a-Lago around New Year's Eve.
Alas, a sitting U.S. president indeed sent those tweets.
What likely inspired this latest chapter of the Shit Sandwich Chronicles was Brzezinski poking fun of his fake Time magazine cover, which went viral earlier this week.
"Nothing makes a man feel better than making a fake cover of a magazine about himself, lying every day and destroying the country," she said on a Thursday morning broadcast of Morning Joe.
Trump's apparent response has now been seen and shared millions of times, and news outlets have been talking about it seemingly nonstop.
It seems to happen every week, but perhaps this ought to be the last time we pay attention to what he puts on Twitter, whether it's an official presidential decree or not.
After all, wall-to-wall coverage of his latest inflammatory, somewhat-self-incriminating social media post plays into the hands of the Republican Party.
Here's why.
If you're a regular non-troll CL reader, chances are you know what a beard is — and not the kind that craft beer brewers often sport. The other kind.
Well, since his Republican presidential nomination became inevitable, Trump has been kind of a beard for the rest of the party. He spouted his simple nationalistic message to a hungry base the party pretended to care about as they salivated over screwing the poor and they got their guy, Mike Pence, the VP nom.
That beardliness has continued into his presidency.
Trump is the center of attention, spouting support for policies governing issues he doesn't seem to understand through his populist lens while the GOP does what it wants behind closed doors.
So while we're all gasping at Trump's latest twitter outburst, the GOP-dominated Congress is screwing immigrants, the sick, the poor and anyone else who is not of any use to them financially or narratively.
This plea to stop covering his shitty vapidness is nothing new, of course. Media outlets are often criticized for obsessively covering the oversized McNugget's antics over the much more complex happenings that have direct impacts on their lives. It's easier to do a piece on his verbal douchebaggery (and really fun!), yes, but recent developments like this week's re-rollback of important Clean Water Act protections are much more important than what some famous but mentally unstable douchebag says about another famous person.
This last one, though. Hoo boy.
Like many of his tweets, his Thursday morning rant shows what a petty, sexist, dishonest megalomaniac he is.
But this one was particularly vile.
It was indicative of his innate disrespect for women and his inability to get past their appearances. If Brzezinski wasn't female, he wouldn't be commenting on her looks. And didn't he just creep out on that Irish reporter? Women are fucking tired of being stared at while they are trying to get a point across only to have the guy who's supposed to be listening a) interrupt you or b) say "huh?" because though he doesn't see you as human, he sure as shit notices your mammaries.
Also, even if Trump's account were true (and it probably isn't) who the fuck cares if a TV personality gets plastic surgery? Hasn't Trump had a little work done himself?
So, let's take this moment to revel, one last time, in his shockingly buffoonish buffoonery, and wake up tomorrow fresh-faced and ready to take on the effort to rip healthcare from 22 million people and give the money that was used to pay for it to millionaires and billionaires.
This article appears in Jun 29 – Jul 7, 2017.