Twitter suspends account in wake of controversial Donald Trump retweet
Yesterday, Donald Trump did something on Twitter that was bizarre even by his standards. He retweeted an offensive anti-CNN cartoon which had originally been posted by what, based on its username, might best be described as a Trump imitator or Trump parody account. That’s right, he quoted one of his own quasi-impersonators. Now things have gotten even more surreal as, in the wake of that incident, the account in question has been suspended.
No, not that account. Twitter didn’t suspend Donald Trump for tweeting toxic garbage; we wouldn’t get that lucky. Instead, Twitter suspended the @rrealdjtrump account that (the real) Donald Trump had retweeted. The guy didn’t voluntarily delete his own account; his page now says “This account has been suspended.”
Why was the account suspended? We haven’t been able to determine that as of yet. The anti-CNN cartoon was offensive and in bad taste, but not to the extent that it appeared to violate any of Twitter’s rules of conduct. In any case Trump’s decision to retweet his own impersonator / supporter / imitator / goon appears to have led to that account having been suspended. It’s always nice when Trump accidentally takes out his own trash. Remarkably, Trump hasn’t done anything about his own retweet in the wake of the suspension, meaning that his page now has this on it:
That’s not exactly a good look for a Twitter account that belongs to the (supposed) President of the United States. Imagine if President Obama had retweeted something offensive that had been posted by one of his own impersonators, and then that account got suspended the next day for rules violations, and Obama simply left the error message in place like a badge of honor. The public would be all over his case for it, and rightly so. But Trump’s nihilist supporters just don’t seem to care what happens.
