Another day, another gaffe from the Know Nothing in Chief. This one’s a doozy.

That’s not the only place Trump is inflaming tensions. News of his resuming rallies, at a time when the COVID-19 crisis has by no means been eliminated, also show that he’s tone deaf to the issue, no matter how loudly America screams at him from the streets. CNN:

Donald Trump will return to the 2020 campaign trail on June 19 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a move freighted with racial symbolism and one almost certain to end poorly for the incumbent president.

The selection of Tulsa as the place where Trump returns to the stump and the date on which he is choosing to do it both suggest that Trump’s long-whispered-about race speech — in the wake of ongoing protests and unrest following the death of George Floyd — will happen next Friday, and at a campaign rally no less.

—Tulsa was the site of one of the most vicious acts of racial violence in American history when, in 1921, a mob of white people attacked a section of the city known as Greenwood or “Black Wall Street” and murdered hundreds of African Americans. (The event was the basis for HBO’s “Watchmen” series.) And June 19, which has become commonly known and celebrated as Juneteenth, or Emancipation Day, commemorates the anniversary of the reading of the General Orders, No. 3, which officially informed slaves that they were free

Its hard not to see this as intentional by the Trump campaign. While Oklahoma has no set limit on group gatherings, it’s not a swing state, so there’s no other obvious reason — other than to address racial issues — that Trump would stage his first rally in the state (and Tulsa particularly). And Trump could have done the rally on lots of days — 364 of them actually! — that don’t commemorate the emancipation of slaves.

If I had to make a prediction at this point, I would say that this latest media stunt on Trump’s part is going to backfire, and it’s only a question of how spectacularly. I suspected that he was going to couple the long awaited race and unity speech with a campaign rally, that’s a no brainer. But whatever theatricality he has planned for next week in Tulsa, I think may end up being the St. John’s church debacle, redux.
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It’s becoming apparent at this point that Trump only functions within the confines of his bubble and when the inhabitants there don’t get the results he wants, he goes bonkers and hires outsiders to pander to his need to hear the chorus of approvals which right now don’t exist. This staged event in Tulsa has all the earmarks of a Trumpian circus act, which he thinks will bring the house down — and may just tank his approval ratings further. I’m willing to bet he hasn’t even thought of that.
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Only one thing is certain and you know this already: Trump cannot play it straight. It isn’t in him. He is a showman and a conman, first last and always. It’s all a game. The time has actually passed when he could have made any kind of a unity speech that might have mattered. Next week will be a joke, and if these bizarre tweets of the past few days are any indication, Trump may be a lot farther gone than even what is obvious.

 

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1 COMMENT

  3. Lol, of course he hasn’t thought of how it will lower his approval ratings! Everything he does is perfect, right? I am willing to bet this will be bigger and better than the stunt at the church.

    • Disturbed is one thing. Not knowing the difference between the Shulzstaffel and the Secret Service is something very different.

  5. And so the cycle begins anew. Anyone who wanted to break out of it has long since fled the scene. We keep doing our part, Trump is doomed.

  7. Of course he abbreviated Secret Service. Trump is extremely sensitive to character count. By abbreviating Secret Service, he has exactly 280 characters. However, it is amazing how often his reptilian brain creates these little scandals. He could just have easily not written “Troops,”and replaced “and others” with “etc” and he would have been home free. But he just has to put out the bait, and we take it every time.

    I doubt the Tulsa rally was his idea—probably some sick adviser like Miller, but I don’t doubt once someone explains how the mere announcement of the event “owns the libs,” he’s on board.

    • At this point, I doubt ANY idea about his campaign comes from him. I do wonder if the person who suggested the time and place of this rally was doing deliberate sabotage from the inside, though.

    • Disagree. Go look at the tweet. He wrote S.S. — ess period ess period. He could have written USSS, which is proper, United States Secret Service and avoided all this. I don’t think it was character count, I think it was deliberate — and I’m not the only one who picked up on this. This opinion is all over Twitter.

      • The opinion being all over twitter does not transform the opinion into a fact.

        We have seen Trump would never think ahead to avoid anything. It could be deliberate. When he is running out of characters, he creates all kinds of strange abbreviation. The presence of only one plausible abbreviation in a tweet with plenty of editing room lends credence to deliberation.

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