Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:06 pm
It was Saturday morning and the Trump campaign had once again allowed the candidate access to the Twitter app on his phone. This never goes well, for when Donald Trump gets to be Donald Trump, it offers a stunning glimpse into his rather troubling values.
And so we got the Trump tweet that misspelled NBA star Dwyane Wade’s name while exploiting the tragic shooting of his cousin, in service of nonsensical Trump gloating.
After the misspelled tweet caused outrage, the Trump account tweeted a correctly spelled version and deleted the first. More outrage ensued because hello, the problem is that Trump appears not to care one bit about the actual loss. That is the problem.
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Dwyane Wade's cousin was just shot and killed walking her baby in Chicago. Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will VOTE TRUMP!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 27, 2016
Once they sorted this out, the Trump Twitter issued its third try at sounding human, and score!
My condolences to Dwyane Wade and his family, on the loss of Nykea Aldridge. They are in my thoughts and prayers.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 27, 2016
The first tweet is on the Android, which is Donald Trump – with the misspelled name and exploitation of a tragedy.
Then, on the iPhone, which Dave Robinson explained is likely the campaign tweeting, we get the name spelled properly but still the exploitation of a tragedy.
Robinson’s investigation into the data revealed the tweets from Donald Trump were the angrier and more negative (my italics):
My analysis, shown below, concludes that the Android and iPhone tweets are clearly from different people, posting during different times of day and using hashtags, links, and retweets in distinct ways. What’s more, we can see that the Android tweets are angrier and more negative, while the iPhone tweets tend to be benign announcements and pictures. Overall I’d agree with @tvaziri’s analysis: this lets us tell the difference between the campaign’s tweets (iPhone) and Trump’s own (Android).
And then on the third try, Donald Trump’s campaign finally managed to express sympathy on the iPad.
Lou Bay played a game of guess the authors:
Guesses on the authors? 1st Trump, Bannon/Trump Kids, then Conway RT @ditzkoff: 9:24 a.m., 12:26 p.m. and 1:48 p.m. pic.twitter.com/ZVjsyzHNWV
— Lou Bay (@LouBay225) August 27, 2016
No worries, nation — if elected, Donald Trump will always get three tries to get it right before other nations declare war. There will be plenty of time for the “good people he surrounds himself with” to fix his errors, and then time for others to fix their errors, because as much as Trump brags about hiring good people, his campaign often seems to be staffed by the wife-beating bigot types who wouldn’t be welcome in civilized society.
This is all okay, though, because after all, Trump supporters are quick to say it’s not fair to judge Donald Trump on the things he says. He’s just running for leader of the free world, relax! What could go wrong?
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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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