While You Were Offline: Who Wants to See Sean Spicer’s Samba?

It’s been a week where people got very upset about the prospect of Spider-Man not appearing in any more Marvel movies but slightly less so about the fires in the Amazon rainforest. It’s also been a week where Taylor Swift put out a new album while announcing a plan to re-record her back catalog so that she’ll own her masters—shades of Frank Sinatra—and a week that saw Brexit planning in Europe face familiar problems while the US stumbles toward recession that the paranoid administration believes is the result of a conspiracy. Meanwhile, the New York Times’ in-depth investigation into the impact of slavery on American history prompted fear and loathing from the right wing. (To cement conservative woes, billionaire and guy-who-funded-all-kinds-of-conservative-activism David Koch died on Friday.) Oh, and the Border Patrol doesn’t want to give detained kids flu vaccines. So, you know, everything’s going great, really. But don’t just take my word for it; here’s what the rest of the internet has been talking about this week.

The Loyalties of Jews, According to Trump

What Happened: Not content with deciding that he should determine who gets to visit Israel, Donald Trump spent this week declaring that he knows which Jewish people are loyal and which ones aren’t.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media reports

What Really Happened: After last week’s furor over getting Democratic Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib essentially banned from Israel, Trump started the week by doubling down on the topic in a big way. It started, of course, on Twitter—

—but continued in the Oval Office, on camera. Although, for just a second, can we appreciate the awkwardness of the phrasing “her violence, craziness and, most importantly, WORDS”? Anyway, let’s get back to the president’s own words, which were … just look for yourself.

Yes, “disloyalty.” You read that right. It wasn’t a misquote, either; let’s look at the tape.

The comments were, of course, picked up by the media, and on social media, as should only be expected, response to the President’s comments was both swift and outraged.

He’s not making up that 8 out of 10 statistic, by the way:

Multiple hashtags popped up to protest the comments, each one trending heavily in the 24 hours after Trump spoke:

There was a very obvious question to ask about the entire idea of Jewish people who don’t vote Republican demonstrating “disloyalty.”

As more condemnation of the clearly anti–Semitic comments was being shared, the president’s supporters tried to clarify just what he had meant and why it wasn’t actually as anti-Semitic as it seemed.

There was one big problem with this defense, however. Namely, the person being defended.

So, was the president being anti-Semitic with his commentary? He did have a response to that kind of criticism:

Look, I didn’t say it was a convincing response. It’s clear where he stands on anti-Semitism and that his views on Israel are more transactional than it may have seemed at first blush.

The Takeaway: Perhaps we should just consider this entire process an educational and revelatory one.

I Look Like Jesus, So They Say

What Happened: One might want to ask just who Donald Trump thinks he is; this week, we got an answer, and it was a pretty surprising one, even for those of us who believed he had quite the ego already.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media reports

What Really Happened: As if calling Jewish Democrats “disloyal” wasn’t enough, Trump opened Wednesday by going bigger on that whole religious culture war thing, and in a direction almost no one could have expected.

This wasn’t an instantaneous and isolated impulse to let everyone see these comments—that he’s not only the “greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world” but also loved by Jewish people “like he’s the King of Israel” and “the second coming of God.” On its face, it’s genuinely breathtaking that anyone would share such a comment about themselves, but … well, it is Donald Trump. It’s worth considering where the quote came from, though, and some on Twitter did that very thing—because Wayne Allyn Root is a conservative TV and radio host who has, shall we say, not the finest track record.

That said, there are those on the right who heap such unearned, hyperbolic praise on Trump on a regular basis. That Root might believe that the president is the king of Israel is, in itself, both disturbing and ridiculous, but what’s noteworthy is that the president saw fit to boast about such a claim. The Twitter reaction was expected.

So where do you go from there? The answer, as people used to say, might surprise you.

Ah, yes—you go to proclaiming that you are, in fact, the second coming. Obviously.

It feels somewhat appropriate here to wonder what Trump’s evangelical supporters would think of his essentially proclaiming himself to be Jesus Christ, returned to Earth. And then it feels just as appropriate to note that such supporters have previously declared that Trump was “chosen” by God to be president, and that they’re supporting what they see as an end-times prophecy. Very comforting.

The Takeaway: Just imagine, for a second, that Donald Trump really was the second coming. Doesn’t that just feel … you know … wrong?

The Right of Birthright

What Happened: The Trump Administration has spent a lot of time going after immigrants in a number of ways; this week, the president decided that he was going to try and address the fact that people born in the United States were US citizens, just because.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media reports

What Really Happened: Okay, so the President is having his own messianic moment, and that is completely fine, I’m sure. (I mean, let’s not think too much about what that says about the President’s mental state or ask about the 25th amendment or anything, I’m sure this will all work itself out easily if we pretend it never happened.) Less “fine”? Other comments he made during the same press appearance where he called himself the Chosen One.

To clarify, birthright citizenship is literally part of the US Constitution, a document that Republicans traditionally proclaim as sacred. It was also a subject clarified by the Supreme Court in the 19th century, for those who like to argue that the amendment isn’t exact enough for them. Trying to end birthright citizenship would mean not only undoing the 14th amendment but also overturning a Supreme Court opinion from 120 years ago—which would take more than a simple executive order, despite what the president suggests.

The seeming contradiction among Republicans over which constitutional amendments are worth keeping and which are seemingly disposable didn’t go unnoticed on social media. (Interestingly enough, the 14th amendment, which is the one that establishes birthright citizenship, is also invoked by gun rights advocates. I guess only part of it should get ignored, in that case.)

For those curious about birthright citizenship and its place in American history, there was even a helpful lesson available to all. On Twitter! Where the president reads things! (He wouldn’t have read this, however; maybe if they made the text larger.)

Even if the president is unsuccessful in his attempts to end birthright citizenship, as most of those who aren’t fervent believers suspect, his declaration to try will still have real-world impact, as one expert—who has literally written the book on the subject—shared:

The Takeaway: Look, this one is just very simple. Although the mention of the president thinking he’s a king rings somewhat too loudly considering the week he’s been having …

Greenland Again

What Happened: The oddity that is the subject of Donald Trump’s desire to buy Greenland continuing to make headlines this week, because 2019 is a very strange year all around.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media reports

What Really Happened: You might, perhaps, remember that last week, we all became aware of Trump’s strange interest in buying Greenland. Yes, the country. Even though no one is trying to sell Greenland.

The issue, which was already ridiculous to begin with—I refer my learned friends to that whole “buying Greenland” aspect of things—became even more so as the week began, no thanks to this completely genuine tweet:

We are a country beset by real problems, yet the president or one of his staff found time to share that with the world. Think about that for a second.

That was just the start of the rollercoaster, however. You see, Trump’s interest in Greenland has gone to such an extreme that someone had asked the prime minister of Denmark—which Greenland is a territory of—how she felt about the whole thing.

That entirely reasonable, straightforward response wasn’t met with an equal amount of level-headedness.

That’s right—the president seemingly postponed a state visit because he’s upset that the Danish leader wasn’t going to go along with his delusion that (a) part of her country was for sale in the first place, and (b) he could buy it.

At least Denmark took it well, even if they are understandably slightly confused about what’s going on.

To make matters stranger, it turns out that the trip that the president canceled (or, if you’re feeling generous, postponed) was his idea in the first place … and wasn’t actually officially happening anyway, perhaps … ?

Well, canceling a trip that was your own idea will definitely show them. As should only be expected at this point, the president continued to hold a grudge throughout the week:

There’s a slight irony about the tiff between Trump and Danish PM; although Mette Frederiksen is generally left-learning politically, she and Trump share an interest in restricting immigration and anti–Muslim rhetoric. In another world, they could have been friends!

While all of this was going on, at least we could take some comfort in the fact that this was purely a Donald Trump thing, and that the Republican Party en masse isn’t enabling this obsession. Oh, wait.

If there’s one upside to this whole thing, it’s that we might, finally, have gotten the answer to what exactly made the president think that Greenland was up for sale in the first place:

The Takeaway: As to where this is all heading, let’s just hope that this isn’t a glimpse into our shared future/

Spicer’s Samba

What Happened: With the announcement of its new cast—and one member of that cast in particular—people realized that there’s an all-new reason to hate ABC’s Dancing With The Stars this week.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media reports

What Really Happened: For everyone wondering what former White House press secretary Sean Spicer is up to these days, this week provided a truly depressing update:

Yes, it’s “time to have some fun,” as opposed to becoming famous for disgracing the position of press secretary, resigning from the position within months and then trying to sell his experience as a memoir and talk show, although that last one didn’t work out too well. I mean, obviously; now he’s on Dancing with the Stars.

But the idea of a man who consistently lied to the American public being invited into the bosom of cozy American entertainment didn’t sit well with a lot of people.

As the outcry against Spicer’s appearance on the show grew in volume, even the show’s host was moved to respond—in coded language.

Elsewhere in the ABC—and larger Disney—family, it was clear that people weren’t too thrilled, either:

For his part, Spicer said that he wanted the show to be “a politics-free zone” that would “bring people of really diverse backgrounds together to have fun with each other, engage in a real civil and respectful way and maybe show millions of Americans how we can get back to that kind of interaction,” seemingly forgetting that he’s talking about Dancing With The Stars. And at least his former boss is happy:

At time of writing, Spicer is still set to appear on the show—despite the other demands on his time:

Yeah, this definitely seems like the kind of guy you want to make look cuddly and harmless on prime time as we head into an election season.

The Takeaway: It’s apparently the week for former Trump press secretaries to get new jobs on television, because Spicer’s successor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is also going to end up in front of the camera for a living. It’s almost as if there’s absolutely no downside for repeatedly misleading an entire country on behalf of a despotic narcissist in the eyes of television executives or something.

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