The president was talking about the need for military spending

Nov 29th, 2017 | By
Category: Notes and Comment Blog
Tags:

Today’s episode of Downward With Trump:

President Trump shared videos on Twitter early Wednesday morning that supposedly portray Muslims committing acts of violence, images that are likely to fuel anti-Islam sentiments popular among the president’s political base in the United States and that prompted the office of Britain’s prime minister to issue a statement condemning the tweets.

Mr. Trump retweeted the video posts from an ultranationalist British party leader, Jayda Fransen, who has previously been charged in the United Kingdom with “religious aggravated harassment,” according to news reports. The videos were titled: “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!”“Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary!” and “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!”

It is unusual to see an American president promote this type of content.

To put it mildly…in fact to put it inaccurately: I don’t think we’ve ever seen a US president do that. Subtler versions, yes, like Reagan launching his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, of all places, but crude exclamatory!!! shit like this? I don’t think so.

The White House spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, defended the president’s tweets to reporters and said the president was talking about the need for national security and military spending.

Oh please. What’s a purported Muslim purportedly destroying a statue of the purported “Virgin Mary” got to do with military spending or national security?

“The threat is real,” Ms. Sanders said. “The threat needs to be addressed. The threat has to be talked about, and that’s what the president is doing in bringing that up.”

By Twitter-ranting about Catholic religious icons. I don’t think so.

British politicians were quick to condemn Mr. Trump’s tacit endorsement of the videos.

The office of Theresa May, the British prime minister, said, “It is wrong for the president to have done this.”

In a statement, the office also said of the far-right party Britain First, for which Ms. Fransen is the deputy: “Britain First seeks to divide communities by their use of hateful narratives that peddle lies and stoke tensions. They cause anxiety to law-abiding people.”

David Lammy, a member of Parliament for the Labour Party, echoed that statement on Twitter. “Trump sharing Britain First. Let that sink in. The President of the United States is promoting a fascist, racist, extremist hate group whose leaders have been arrested and convicted. He is no ally or friend of ours.”

Or of ours.

This reaction is exactly what James R. Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, said he feared when he saw the president’s Twitter posts.

“It has all kinds of ripple effects, both in terms of perhaps inciting or encouraging anti-Muslim violence, and as well causes, I think, our friends and allies around the world to wonder about the judgment of the president of the United States,” Mr. Clapper told CNN on Wednesday.

Britain First was co-founded by a man who later supported Mr. Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign and was part of the efforts to spread anti-Clinton news on social media.

Name of James Dowson.

The official Twitter account of Britain First also wrote to its more than 24,000 followers on Wednesday morning about Mr. Trump’s posts.

“Donald Trump has just retweeted Britain First’s deputy leader Jayda Fransen THREE times,” the group wrote.

The hateful hate-mongering dogwhistling racist Trump retweeted a far-right racist party’s hate-mongering videos THREE TIMES.

Britain First calls itself a “patriotic” political party but has been criticized by human rights groups as being a far-right extremist group that engages in activities calculated to bait Muslims.

Formed in 2011 by former members of the far-right British National Party, the group states on its Facebook page that its mission is to fight “the many injustices that are routinely inflicted on the British people” and to defend British culture against the excesses of left-wing liberalism and political correctness.

Chuka Umunna, a Labour Party member of Parliament, wrote on Twitter that an invitation for Mr. Trump to come to Britain for a state visit should be immediately withdrawn. “The US President is normalising hatred. If we don’t call this out, we are going down a very dangerous road. His invite should be withdrawn,” he wrote.

Can we also withdraw the invitation for him to be the US head of state? Because that would be awesome.

Mr. Trump’s tweets were welcomed by a former Ku Klux Klan leader, David Duke, who wrote on Twitter, “Thank God for Trump! That’s why we love him!”

New depths.

9 Responses to “The president was talking about the need for military spending”