Why ‘Sharpie-gate’
could be devastating Trump’s re-election hopes
There’s a lot opponents can say
about President Trump heading into the 2020 election. You have the Mueller
Report, which laid out at least ten examples where the president obstructed
justice. He was named as a co-conspirator in the indictment of his personal
attorney who is now serving time in prison.
You can point out his enriching his businesses and himself while being
president. His policies have allowed children to be locked in cages living in
their own filth. #hocopolitics
There are his embarrassing
moments on the world stage including his coddling of autocratic tyrants and
belittling allies. More recently is the nonsensical trade war with China that,
if continued, will put our economy in peril.
And, of course, you have the endless lies, blatant hypocrisy and narcissism.
None of this seemed to have moved
the needle. Where he should be sitting at 12 percent approval mainly from the
KKK wing of his base, he is still in the mid-40’s range. It’s a real head-scratcher to be sure. What would it take? #hocopolitics
Hurricane Dorian and in
particular “Sharpie-gate” might be the answer.
Trump incorrectly announced that
sweet home Alabama would be in the path of Dorian. As the hurricane moved along its wobbly track
it became more apparent that it will hit along the Florida coast and head
north. Alabama would be spared.
But Trump did not back off and reiterated his
prediction necessitating a rare rebuke from the National Weather Service (NWS).
Unwilling or unable to admit what
seemed to have been an honest mistake, Trump continued to maintain he was right
all along. So at the Oval office on
September 4, he pulled out a chart showing the track of Dorian but it was
doctored by the markings of a black sharpie that extended the cone of
uncertainty to Alabama.
On Twitter Trump continued to
defend his prediction fully five days after his initial statement. Somehow he
managed to get Rear Adm. Peter Brown, a Homeland
Security and counterterrorism adviser, who said he briefed Trump multiple times
about Dorian as well as models that showed the potential path of the eye
of the storm to defend him in a rather lengthy statement.
The backlash was severe and
unrelenting.
This all became fodder for jokes
by late night comedians and political commentators—print and TV—a well as
creative memes that spread all over social media displaying doctored photos
with a black marker to increase the size
of Trump’s hands or his height to show he is taller than Obama as examples.
But for the Trump campaign, this
was no laughing matter. While the
actions, performance and character of the president have been insufficient to
this point to shake his base, “Sharpie-gate” might. This is a much easier concept to digest than
the 440-page Mueller Report and Attorney General William Barr’s deliberate
attempt to muddy the waters. People saw
this in very simplistic terms; many of Trump’s foibles rose to the surface with
this one episode.
On September 5, The Washington Post put up a brief story on
Instagram about
the sharpie modifications on the chart. It
received over 14,000 “Likes” so far.
The most popular comment (over
1,700 Likes) came from Paulsarkisphoto who posted, “Trump’s head is a cone of
uncertainty.”
Another comment came from gt69
who said, “I can not [sic] believe this man is president. I live in Alabama and
heard this. People need to wake up and vote!!! Let’s elect someone that’s
competent!!!
Why this reaction should be a
red flag for Trump and his team is the fact that there were very few people
willing to defend him. Usually a WAPO story on Trump has a pretty decent number
of people going to bat for the president. With this one, however, they hunkered
down.
That's not a good sign for Trump.
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