Tweetizen Trump – 2017-08-28: “As Others Have Said”

Things continue to look bad along the Gulf, Donald — and, to be fair, you continue tweeting about it. Let’s hope that an analysis of all the actions the federal government has taken and will take around this disaster show as much robust activity as your tweeting has.

In the meantime, you threw a couple of other nuggets into the mix that deserve some attention. They were a bit … odd, in that none of them were statements by you, but retweets of statements by others.

First, from Dinesh D’Souza:

Finally, as if by accident, the @washingtonpost breaks down & admits the truth about where the violence is coming from https://t.co/n9L1XclpDg

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) August 28, 2017

That was pointing to a Washington Post story about a right wing demonstration in Berkeley that was attacked by antifa counter-protesters.

So I’m not sure why you aren’t talking about fascism and antifa, Donald, though I’m sure you got some amusement over that crazy zinger at the WaPo.

Antifa is an interesting movement (it doesn’t even warrant the term “organization”), focused on anti-fascist activities. In general, most people applaud anti-fascism. Heck, we even fought a world war over that cause.

The internal ideology of antifa members is varied, from communist to anarchist to simple anti-fascist. Their M.O., though, is to (literally) fight against demonstrations of fascist activity, actively and vigorously, almost a Bush Doctrine against letting fascism take root.

Most of the antifa elements in Charlottesville (where, as with elsewhere, they usually make up a small percentage of the counter-protesters) did seem focused on opposing violence from the pro-fascist / Nazi / racist / supremacist folk there making trouble in the first place. But as the antifa folk in Berkeley have demonstrated multiple times, they aren’t above some car burning and protester beating as well. And as their definitions of “fascism” tends to be a broad one, they are also alongside the trash can burners and brick throwers who show up at major pro-capitalism gatherings (World Bank meetings, G7 conferences, etc.).

I tend to disapprove of violent protest, or violent counter-protest (except as a defensive measure). I also disapprove of people marching around threatening others verbally as well, as we’ve seen that when that goes unchecked, that threatened violence usually ensues.

Of course, none of this means that this is “the truth about where the violence is coming from” — there is clear evidence of right-wing violence in Charlottesville that had nothing to do with antifa. But, of course, one of the dangers in intentionally creating a reputation for this kind of aggression is that it makes it easy for people to sincerely, or disingenously, blame you for the goings-on.

I don’t approve of what antifa counter-protesters are reported to have done here. But I’m willing to say so myself, Donald, rather than letting a surrogate like D’Sousa (a conservative commentator, convicted felon, and conspiracy theorist) speak for me.

Next, in response to a tweet from Obama foreign policy advisor Ben Rhodes …

Obama used his pardon and commutation power to give a second chance to people who deserved empathy, not racists who showed none. https://t.co/KXhBQk5MHu

— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) August 26, 2017

… you retweeted Townhall editor and Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich:

Your boss pardoned a traitor who gave U.S. enemies state secrets, he also pardoned a terrorist who killed Americans. Spare us the lecture. https://t.co/90jZcPXYqx

— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) August 27, 2017

So, again, I’ll raise an eyebrow about personally publishing on your own Twitter account a defense of your Joe Arpaio pardon that (a) isn’t from you yourself but from someone else, and (b) takes the “But Obama did it, too, only worse!” approach.

I won’t go into detail yet again about how the Obama sentence commutation of Chelsea Manning and Oscar Rivera are substantively different from your preemptive pardon of Joe Arpaio, except to drastically summarize:

• Clemency via process and Justice Dept. recommendations, rather than favor to a personal friend as vetted via a political rally
• Clemency to individuals who had served many years of their sentences, rather than someone who hadn’t even been sentenced
• Commutation (ending a sentence) rather than pardon (striking the crime from their record)

It’s like being charged with robbing a bank, and claiming that the government fines banks all the time so it’s just exactly the same (in fact, even better). It’s not a good defense, Donald, even via retweet.

Then, oddly enough, you retweeted … an inspirational quote?

No color, no religion, no nationality should come between us, we are all children of God. – Mother Teresa

— Inspirational Quotes (@Inspire_Us) August 27, 2017

Which coming from a man who regularly denigrates followers of a major world religion; who accuses people of certain nations to all be presumed security risks, terrorists, or raping murderous thugs; who regularly upholds his own nation and its citizens as the best in the world; and whose rhetoric regularly insults or demonizes people of color … all in the midst of a controversy over your peremptory pardon of a man who made a living harassing people of color on the presumption that they were all of a different nationality than he is —

— is surely enough to have Mother Theresa spinning in her grave.

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Meanwhile, you or your Social Media Minion posted two additional flooding tweets in @RealDonaldTrump (but nothing on @POTUS).

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