Trump has thoughts on the resignation of two aides over the past 48 hours due to domestic violence allegations, and I have thoughts on his thoughts:
Shut ALL the way up. pic.twitter.com/uO91pSs4BX
— Betty Cracker (@bettycrackerfl) February 10, 2018
In case it’s not clear, the photo is of a full-page ad Trump took out in New York newspapers to try to organize a lynch mob against five teenagers falsely accused of raping and assaulting a jogger in Central Park. Via The Week:
When a Central Park jogger was brutally raped and beaten nearly to death in 1989, Donald Trump was at the front of the pack calling for literal blood. Four black teenagers and one Latino teenager were charged and jailed on shaky evidence after confessing to the crime under intense questioning, and two weeks after the attack, Trump took out a full-page ad in four city newspapers advocating for the reinstatement of the death penalty.
But the so-called Central Park Five were vindicated in 2002, when their convictions were vacated after a convicted murderer and rapist confessed to the crime — a confession that was corroborated by DNA evidence. (DNA was never found connecting the Central Park Five to the crime.) The Central Park Five were eventually awarded a $41 million settlement from New York City in 2014.
But over the decades, even as it became increasingly clear that the Central Park Five were innocent, Trump has continued to call for their deaths, and even criticized the city for its multi-million dollar settlement — all without any actual evidence that the Central Park Five were involved in the rape.
As The Week story points out, Trump was still ranting about the case a couple of years ago. The evidence that Trump doesn’t believe in due process extends far beyond his shameful attacks on the Central Park Five. It includes the absurd “birther” crusade, the chants of “Lock Her Up” and the plea to Comey to “let Flynn go.”
I don’t think Trump wrote the tweet above. It only contains one randomly capitalized noun and no explicit references to himself, which is a tell. But it probably represents his “thoughts” on the deference owed to himself and those like him.
In the context of his past hypocritical statements and actions, it boils down to this: Trump believes that white men named Donald J. Trump, white men who pledge fealty to Donald J. Trump and white men who are in some way useful to Donald J. Trump are above the law. That turns the very concepts of “due” and “process” upside down, so yeah, STFU.
Open thread, I guess…