Donald Trump has demonstrated almost on a daily basis that he has no idea how a president is supposed to behave. He demonstrated that when he initially blamed the weekend’s carnage in Charlottesville, Virginia on “many sides”–even after a white racist knuckledragger plowed through a crowd in his car.
Trump tried to walk back those comments after it became apparent that the white supremacists were actually applauding him. But he did something else this weekend that proves he doesn’t know or understand that he is supposed to be the president for all of the American people. His 2020 reelection campaign rolled out an ad that chastised the media and Democrats for daring to call him out.
Sometime early Sunday morning, the Trump campaign released this ad.
It starts with vintage Trump dog whistles and red meat–whining about the media “attacking our president,” while “career politicians”–mostly Democrats–are “obstructing” Trump and “standing in the way of success.” After patting Trump on the back for his work with the economy and the military, it then whines about how “the president’s enemies”–with images of journalists flashing across the screen–“don’t want him to succeed,” and warns that the people want the media and Democrats to let Trump “do his job.”
There’s a lot wrong with this ad in and of itself. For one thing, a presidential campaign that loudly refers to the media as “the president’s enemies” is something you’d expect to hear in a Third World country. Venezuela immediately comes to mind. That kind of sentiment has no place here. Trump also doesn’t know that the Democrats are merely doing their job by opposing his agenda. Then again, we have a president who probably doesn’t understand what constructive criticism means. Remember, he has never worked for a non-relative before.
In short, this ad all but announces that Trump has no intention of reaching outside his base. Instead, he is engaging in the very same dog-whistle tactics that embolden trolls acting in his name to attack his opponents.
But the timing of this ad could not possibly have been worse. This kind of red meat is exactly the wrong message to send in the wake of an act of domestic terrorism. Why didn’t Trump show some leadership and place a phone call from Bedminster to Trump Tower and tell them to pull the ad from its planned rotation? But he didn’t.
It sounds particularly discordant in light of one of Trump’s tweets from Saturday.
We must remember this truth: No matter our color, creed, religion or political party, we are ALL AMERICANS FIRST. pic.twitter.com/FesMiQSKKn
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2017
And yet, 12 hours later after declaring that we are Americans above all else, he rolls out an ad attacking the media as his enemy. Oh, that’s right–the media isn’t his enemy, but the enemy of the American people. Sounds like Trump is the embodiment of the worst in our politics–rather than a guy trying to drain the swamp.
If Trump has anything in him, he will pull this ad and pull it now. Let him and his campaign know what you think on the ad’s YouTube comment page, as well as his campaign’s Twitter feed.
(featured image courtesy Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)
