“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion…” pic.twitter.com/InZ58zkoAm
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 13, 2017
Donald Trump’s Twitter habit tends to hog a lot of the spotlight, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s helping him all that much—or that he’s even very good at it. Now, in the wake of violence caused by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, President Barack Obama has deftly beaten him at his own game, whether we’re talking about Twitter or actually being president and comforting the American people.
On Saturday—the appropriate time to weigh in on such a thing, rather than two days later—President Obama sent the above tweet, reading, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion…” In two later tweets, Obama finished the Nelson Mandela quote, but the first one caught fire and quickly shot through the ranks of most-liked tweets in history, eventually landing in the number one spot. (I’m sure we’ll all be lectured shortly on how it’s all a camera trick to make the likes on Trump’s tweets seem fewer.)
The photo in the tweet is yet another one of former White House Photographer Pete Souza’s, who’s already provided plenty of material for illustrating the vast difference between Obama’s presidency and the current occupant of the White House. It’s weird that there’s even room for much of a difference at all in the response to such terrible events, including the murder of Heather Heyer, but that’s what you get when the president of the United States says there were “very fine people” among those marching with torches and chanting “Jews will not replace us.”
If Trump is still wondering why he was not awarded any cookies or gold stars for his obvious attempt to quell criticism by reading a statement denouncing hate groups his continued position that there are two sides to consider in the fight against Nazis and white supremacy might just explain things. Or it could be that Trump reportedly had a statement denouncing those groups on Saturday and chose to place the blame on “many sides” instead. Or it could be that he even cared about getting media credit for the denouncement, rather than just doing it because he wanted to—the only justification he seems to need for practically everything else that flies out of his mouth at the drop of a hat.
(via Engadget, image: Pete Souza)
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Published: Aug 16, 2017 10:22 am