President Donald Trump poked fun at his Democratic presidential challengers in a since-deleted Twitter video posted Friday afternoon....The point is that all of the Democrats in the clip look sad or disgruntled. That's it -- that's the whole joke. And yes, the president retweeted it.
The video features the ubiquitous song “Everbody Hurts” by R.E.M. overlaid on footage from the State of the Union address. The footage features shots of Democrats like California Rep. Eric Swalwell, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, California Sen. Kamala Harris and others.
The video was first created by Twitter user “CarpeDonktum,” whose bio section reads “Eternally Sarcastic Memesmith specializing in the creation of Images and Videos. I tweet and meme in support of Donald Trump. Posted content is 100% original.”
We can say what we always say -- "Can you imagine if Obama..." etc., etc. But notice that this is a fanboy's measure of success for Donald Trump: He makes Democrats sad. (Also Mitt Romney, but much of the right sees him as an honorary Democrat.)
The vast majority of what Trump says in the clip is standard State of the Union platitiudes. There's also Trump's promise that America will never become socialist, and a boast about the employment rate. This is edited so it appears that Democrats hate job growth, but it's a reminder of one reason Republicans in 2018 didn't run on the economy, and why Trump spends much more of his time talking about other matters: In real life, Democrats aren't against jobs. The GOP base can't truly savor the unemployment figures in part because they don't induce liberal tears. That's why the base is much more excited about the wall.
As Gateway Pundit notes, members of R.E.M. complained about the video, and the band's music publisher successfully lobbied for the removal of the original CarpeDonkum tweet, which Trump had retweeted. (Someone needs to tell R.E.M. about the YouTube video above, and about another Twitter user's repost of the video.) Eventually CarpeDonkum updated the video with a new soundtrack: the unofficial right-wing national anthem, Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA." The president (or some staffer with the keys to his account) then tweeted the recut version:
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 16, 2019
That's what American patriotism is to conservatives: liberals being upset.
I don't like conservatives and I think they're destroying America, but I want better policies, and that's what I want to cheer for. Sure, I'd be thrilled if a number of these SOBs went to prison or lost elections, but that's not what I crave most. If you were happy on Election Night 2008, I bet it was less because John McCain and Sarah Palin lost than because someone you thought would do good things for America won. Our joy was seeing that family take the stage in Grant Park, not in watching McCain and Palin concede.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that's a difference between us and the right. Our primary goal isn't conservative tears.
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