I disliked Obama getting himself involved in things that were none of a president's business. If there was a racial angle to it he just couldn't avoid inserting himself by arranging a Beer Summit, or pretending that Trayvon could have been his son, so he had to come in and care. Presidents are not supposed to weigh in on court cases that are barely underway, and a lawyer especially should know that.
But Trump is several times worse. Just ridiculous. The Super Bowl Halftime Show should be something he expresses no opinion on. Nor should the name of the Washington football team be part of his remit. I appreciate that there is some aspect of political tactic that just seems to work, which is probably intuitive rather than planned for him. And it may be that he can't get what he wants done without things like this to create chaos and get everyone worried about the wrong stuff. When he distracts his opponents into these things it might give him room to operate. But I still don't like it. To someone like me, who has never had conversations where this level of chaos would be an advantage, it seems unnecessary.
Prove me wrong, as Charlie Kirk would say.
1 comment:
This won't prove you wrong but I am going to suggest you are comparing apples and rocks. Yeah, the examples you give are in general all opinions but of what real import is Trump's opinion on the SB Halftime? That's on the level of the reporting of Obama's Final Four bracket selections though the presentation of those was almost invariably hagiographic. I don't think either Trump comment rises to the level of claiming "The police acted stupidly" and subtly but effectively accusing them in both cases of overt racism, and Trump certainly has no levers with which to implement them. Lastly, there has been for the last decade a brand of journalism that thrives on "look at this crazy thing Trump said". I suspect Obama expressed just as many opinions but the reporting on them, as I noted above, was as carefully curated for effect as the reporting of Trump's are now.
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