All that over nothing
After Judge Merchan hit Donald Trump with a gag order preventing him from smearing court officers and their families, Trump tried to work around it by spending the weekend smearing the judge’s daughter. So on Monday, the judge expanded his gag order to include the daughter, and that’s that. Or so you’d think.
This was, essentially, a non-story. Trump (or whoever might be ghost-posting for him on social media these days) briefly found a way around the gag order – and that path was then immediately blocked. If anything it shows that Trump really doesn’t have any power at all, because any little angle he thinks he’s found, the courts can just take it away from him.
Yet as this non-story played out, we were subjected to endless narratives on TV and Twitter about how Trump was supposedly violating his gag order, and how he was getting away with it. But Trump wasn’t violating the gag order to begin with, and it’s hard to “get away” with something you’re not even doing. After a weekend of nonstop hyperventilating, the whole storyline turned out to be… nothing.
What’s concerning is that, even as nothing was happening in this non-story, far too many voices big and small on our side used it as an opportunity to portray Trump as being more omnipotently powerful than ever, and more able to get away with things than ever. And it was all based on something that wasn’t even happening. Sheesh. Half the voices on our side might as well just start wearing name badges that say “Trump’s unwitting publicist.”
We have got to stop propping Trump up like this. He is, rather obviously, at his most weak and feeble and hapless and restricted point to date. He’s too senile to remain on the campaign trail, and now the courts are getting to decide what he’s even allowed to talk about, even as his first criminal trial begins in thirteen days.
Why on earth would we want to take the bait and help Donald Trump portray himself as being more dangerously powerful than ever? It’s just so obviously untrue. And all we’re doing is helping him by feeding into that false narrative. We’re not being “vigilant” when we help Trump portray himself as being more powerful than ever. We’re being gullible. Trump wants to be seen as more powerful than ever, because it’s the only hope he has left of remaining relevant as he gets ripped to pieces. Why on earth would we want to play into his hands by helping him to sell the fictional narrative that he has us right where he wants us?
To put it bluntly: stop being helpless. Stop allowing Trump to screw with you. This guy is like 92% senile, and yet he can still get many of you to hide under your desks just by making a social media post from his basement. You’re a lot stronger than that, and he’s a lot weaker than that. Don’t play into his hands. You want Trump gone sooner? Start calling out just how weak and feeble and washed up he is. And don’t you dare help him falsely portray himself as being more powerful than ever – or else I might have to start handing out “Trump’s unwitting publicist” name tags after all.
