The craziest thing I’ve seen today are all the MAGA aligned people who DEFENDED the video before it was taken down. Influencers, Twitter users, and even the press secretary:
> White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt initially defended the video, which amplified false claims about the 2020 presidential election.
These are dangerous people who will defend any atrocity that the administration commits. Unbelievable.
> A senior WH official tells me: A White House staffer erroneously made the post.
> Newsom’s office jumped on the admission, posting “WOW! WHITE HOUSE SAYS TRUMP DOESN’T WRITE HIS OWN TWEETS??? AUTOPEN!” and included an A.I. image featuring an autopen writing a social media post in Trump’s name.
There is a bit of a difference between posting a tweet on Trump's account without his knowledge, and signing actual laws and executive orders without his knowledge.
Ron Filipowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social reports [0] that Trump admits he was the one who found the video and asked that it be posted from his Truth Social account. Refuses to apologize.
> Reporter: The WH says a staffer sent that video. Are you going to fire the staffer?
> Trump: No. I looked at it. I didn't see the whole thing. I gave it to the people, they posted it.
The only mitigating circumstance I can see is that Trump in fact may not have known all the contents. He's got people posting for him. (Given the rate at which he posts, he pretty much has to.) And given the rate at which "he" posts, even they may not have watched the video all the way through.
Or they may have, and decided that it did in fact match the tone that they thought Trump wanted to convey.
How many times can these types of things happen before it is obvious that there are no mitigating circumstances. This is who they are. They only took it down because some of their own party members (the ones likely getting nervous about the next election) were bothered by it.
I lean "both sides". Or at least I did, before June of 2020.
I don't see room for any benefit of the doubt here. Even if this was from some staffer getting "carried away", this is exactly why you don't load your administration with human bags of rotting trash. This is why politicians reaffirm societal values with virtue signaling, and pearl clutching when bad things happen - not continually trashing our societal values with edgelord vice signalling, as if everything is just one big joke deserving of scorn. Then when mistakes [0] are made, those mistakes can be viewed as obvious outliers and sensibly repudiated, rather than clearly being a central part of the overall platform.
If the public relations backlash here ends up being large enough that it leads to some Republican reflection and administration backpedaling, as happened from the execution of Alex Pretti, performative damage control is all it should be viewed as - mere regret for having blown the dog whistle too loudly.
[0] mistake in the sense of having trusted the wrong person to do something. The person who created this obviously can't be said to themselves have made a mistake
setting aside the content, it's deeply concerning for something like this to happen
that account tweets national policy and attacks foreign leaders
that some person can tweet unsupervised is incredibly dangerous
---
back on topic, this is a repost of the same account that depicted Trump shitting on Americans from a plane
then consider it seems it occurred during the same time frame (late night) that is usual tirades on Trump Social happen (est based on when "deleted after 12 hours" started showing up in the articles "by mid day")
Obama really does live rent free in his head, it's incredible how often he's comparing himself to him
Posting obviously racist material at the start of Black History Month. They know what they’re doing.
A man stops by a kiosk selling snacks and such. There's a newspaper stand and the man browses for a moment, sighs, and begins walking away.
The man running the kiosk asks "Is there something wrong with the paper?"
"No, I'm just looking for an obituary"
The man at the kiosk lets out a laugh. "Well, sir, you aren't going to find the obituaries on the front page."
"The one I'm looking for will be on the front page."
The craziest thing I’ve seen today are all the MAGA aligned people who DEFENDED the video before it was taken down. Influencers, Twitter users, and even the press secretary:
> White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt initially defended the video, which amplified false claims about the 2020 presidential election.
These are dangerous people who will defend any atrocity that the administration commits. Unbelievable.
Someone was defending it on HN today:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46918803
/sigh
Are you sure of their tone? Maybe they're pointing out that T accidentally insulted himself, and laughing at that. It reads ambiguously to me.
The article is flagged...that is on the mods...not the MAGA let loose here
> A senior WH official tells me: A White House staffer erroneously made the post.
> Newsom’s office jumped on the admission, posting “WOW! WHITE HOUSE SAYS TRUMP DOESN’T WRITE HIS OWN TWEETS??? AUTOPEN!” and included an A.I. image featuring an autopen writing a social media post in Trump’s name.
Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/autopen-newsom-skewers-t...
There is a bit of a difference between posting a tweet on Trump's account without his knowledge, and signing actual laws and executive orders without his knowledge.
Ron Filipowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social reports [0] that Trump admits he was the one who found the video and asked that it be posted from his Truth Social account. Refuses to apologize.
> Reporter: The WH says a staffer sent that video. Are you going to fire the staffer?
> Trump: No. I looked at it. I didn't see the whole thing. I gave it to the people, they posted it.
> Reporter: Are you going to apologize?
> Trump: No, I didn't make a mistake.
[0] https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:t6ubj2wlhc34awzcymh3qpur/po...
[dead]
"Trump says he won't apologize for racist post depicting the Obamas as apes" - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-shares-ra...
I lean Republican. Or at least I did, pre-Trump.
I condemn this. It's repulsive.
The only mitigating circumstance I can see is that Trump in fact may not have known all the contents. He's got people posting for him. (Given the rate at which he posts, he pretty much has to.) And given the rate at which "he" posts, even they may not have watched the video all the way through.
Or they may have, and decided that it did in fact match the tone that they thought Trump wanted to convey.
> The only mitigating circumstance I can see is that Trump in fact may not have known all the contents.
So he's not racist, he's just grossly incompetent? I mean it's not _great_ mitigation.
Semantics - he's just an asshole and not the kind of role model leader i want for my child to grow up with.
How many times can these types of things happen before it is obvious that there are no mitigating circumstances. This is who they are. They only took it down because some of their own party members (the ones likely getting nervous about the next election) were bothered by it.
I lean "both sides". Or at least I did, before June of 2020.
I don't see room for any benefit of the doubt here. Even if this was from some staffer getting "carried away", this is exactly why you don't load your administration with human bags of rotting trash. This is why politicians reaffirm societal values with virtue signaling, and pearl clutching when bad things happen - not continually trashing our societal values with edgelord vice signalling, as if everything is just one big joke deserving of scorn. Then when mistakes [0] are made, those mistakes can be viewed as obvious outliers and sensibly repudiated, rather than clearly being a central part of the overall platform.
If the public relations backlash here ends up being large enough that it leads to some Republican reflection and administration backpedaling, as happened from the execution of Alex Pretti, performative damage control is all it should be viewed as - mere regret for having blown the dog whistle too loudly.
[0] mistake in the sense of having trusted the wrong person to do something. The person who created this obviously can't be said to themselves have made a mistake
setting aside the content, it's deeply concerning for something like this to happen
that account tweets national policy and attacks foreign leaders
that some person can tweet unsupervised is incredibly dangerous
---
back on topic, this is a repost of the same account that depicted Trump shitting on Americans from a plane
then consider it seems it occurred during the same time frame (late night) that is usual tirades on Trump Social happen (est based on when "deleted after 12 hours" started showing up in the articles "by mid day")
Obama really does live rent free in his head, it's incredible how often he's comparing himself to him