Trump’s impeachment trial tweets are dangerous and getting worse

President Trump’s counternarrative to his Senate impeachment trial has been to submit more and more dangerous tweets.

This was particularly obvious on Thursday, when Trump posted a remarkably tone-deaf tweet about vehicles “pushing snowflakes apart,” then adopted that up with one other utilizing a photoshopped picture to smear former President Barack Obama. These tweets got here hours after he posted a string of complaints in regards to the impeachment trial that mangled fundamental information, and a day after he set a single-day posting record with more than 140 tweets and retweets — a file that appears unlikely to outlive the trial.

Trump’s tweets proceed to be taken severely within the echo chamber of Fox Information, which has labored additional time to downplay the impeachment trial and spin it in the most favorable possible manner for the president. However a sober examination of Trump’s tweets reveals an off-the-rails presidency, even when we’re changing into more and more numb to it.

A tasteless tweet adopted by a photoshopped smear

Whereas Democratic impeachment managers made the case against him within the Senate on Thursday afternoon, Trump posted an unsourced picture of a truck affixed with a plow emblazoned with the next slogan: “TRUMP 2020: PUSHING SNOWFLAKES ASIDE.”

“That could be a actual fan,” Trump wrote above the picture. “Thanks!”

This tweet would possibly seem as a little bit of comparatively innocent enjoyable. However it’s remarkably tasteless when interpreted within the context of what occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 to Heather Heyer — a counterprotester who was killed by a neo-Nazi who ran her over along with his automobile.

Trump infamously responded to that incident by describing the white supremacists who had gathered in Charlottesville for the “Unite the Proper” rally as “very advantageous individuals.” And his tweet on Thursday veered uncomfortably shut to creating gentle of the murderous conduct that killed Heyer.

Maybe Trump simply didn’t suppose by means of the implications of his “PUSHING SNOWFLAKES ASIDE” tweet earlier than he posted it. However the identical can’t be mentioned for one more tweet he posted later Thursday smearing Obama with a photoshopped picture.

That submit, which is Trump’s pinned tweet as that is printed, exhibits Obama utilizing binoculars to look into Trump Tower and spy on Trump — a visible depiction of a conspiracy principle Trump has spent three years pushing.

Suffice it to say there’s no evidence the Obama administration spied on Trump. The FBI did use the Overseas Surveillance Intelligence Act (FISA) to surveil onetime Trump marketing campaign overseas coverage adviser Carter Web page, however that didn’t occur till after Web page left the marketing campaign. Trump, nevertheless, gained’t let information get in the best way of his narrative that Obama and firm conspired to take him down earlier than he even took workplace.

Whereas that tweet may not appear immediately associated to the impeachment inquiry, for Trump, the Ukraine scandal is only a continuation of the Russia “hoax” investigated by particular counsel Robert Mueller — by no means thoughts that his actions (firing FBI Director James Comey within the Russia case, perverting diplomacy for political favors within the Ukraine one) have been immediately liable for every of them.

Trump can’t even get the information about his personal impeachment trial proper

Trump started his day on Thursday with a string of tweets in regards to the impeachment course of that botched a variety of fundamental information.

“The Democrat Home wouldn’t give us attorneys, or not one witness, however now demand that the Republican Senate produce the witnesses that the Home by no means sought, and even requested for?” Trump wrote in a single. “They’d their probability, however pretended to hurry. Most unfair & corrupt listening to in Congressional historical past!”

Each factual declare in Trump’s tweet is false. Home Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY) allowed Trump’s lawyer to take part within the impeachment inquiry; a number of witnesses requested by Republicans testified to Home investigators; and the explanation Home Democrats couldn’t get all of the paperwork they sought is due to White Home stonewalling, not as a result of they “by no means sought” them.

Trump adopted up that tweet with others that pushed a false equivalency between the Obama administration withholding overseas assist for respectable causes and his effort to carry it up for political favors, and one other that and not using a shred of irony accused Democrats of making an attempt to undermine the 2020 election — the precise form of dishonest that resulted in his impeachment.

Trump’s poisonous Twitter displays a broader toxicity

Three years into the Trump presidency, we’ve change into considerably numb to the president’s bonkers Twitter account. This month alone, I’ve documented how Trump spent his holidays retweeting QAnon and Pizzagate accounts and used his giant platform to out the federal government whistleblower who first sounded the alarm about his dealings with Ukraine. I additionally detailed how tweets Trump posted about Iran that added gasoline to a disaster that introduced the 2 nations to the brink of struggle and illustrated his total disregard for congressional oversight.

However it’s clear that Trump’s dangerous tweets are a part of a broader downside — feedback he made offline this week in regards to the Ukraine scandal and Iran have been just as incendiary and allergic to the truth.

So it’s not simply Trump’s tweets which have change into more and more normalized as we get additional and additional away from having a president who’s held to any form of requirements. It’s Trump’s conduct basically. And one wonders how dangerous issues will get within the seemingly occasion that Trump is acquitted by the Senate and heads into his reelection marketing campaign feeling even much less constrained by any form of oversight.

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