This morning, the President’s second son took to Twitter in a poorly conceived attempt to defend his father’s appalling “Pocahontas” remarks yesterday while he was “honoring” veteran Navajo Code Talkers.
Predictably, Eric decided to use his father’s favorite line of attack- cry “fake news!” – to somehow discredit the controversy over the President’s remarks, which were racially insensitive at the very least and when taken in the context of President Trump’s blatant encouragement of white ethnonationalism and his policies of discrimination against nonwhites can only be interpreted as a racial slur.
The irony of an ABC reporter (whose parent company Disney has profited nearly half a billion dollars on the movie “Pocahontas”) inferring that the name is “offensive” is truly staggering to me.
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) November 28, 2017
While the sheer stupidity of this tweet is the only thing staggering about it, it offers an illuminating glimpse into the fetid, twisted morass of the Trump mind.
Ignoring the fact that this is not ironic in the slightest, the underlying implication that all things that make money are therefore inherently “good” and inoffensive in and of itself, as an associative property of having “created profit,” speaks volumes about the Trump family ethos.
The fact that the Disney corporation made millions of dollars off of appropriating, whitewashing, and romanticizing the story of a young Powhatan girl who was kidnapped and raped by European colonial invaders has nothing to do with the fact that President Trump has used the name “Pocahontas” to mock and denigrate a United States Senator on multiple occasions, which clearly makes its use offensive.
Twitter users were not pleased with Eric’s assertion and immediately barraged him with furious replies, earning him a staggering 3 to 1 reply to retweet ratio – the hallmark of a terrible tweet.
Here’s a sample of the best:
here’s the thing, E. the film Pocahontas is about a real person named Pocahontas. Senator Warren is not Pocahontas.
would you like it if someone called you Hitler since you’re a white guy with german heritage?— marisa kabas (@MarisaKabas) November 28, 2017
Eric why do you look like a failed costume designer’s attempt to make a ghost butler
— sick transit, gloria (@samknight1) November 28, 2017
The Trump Large Adult Son version of sibling rivalry is that they're always trying to compete to confuse us about which one is the dumbest. I was leaning Don Jr recently, but Eric's making a strong push here. We should have leaderboards.
— Rob #SaveNetNeutrality Sheridan (@rob_sheridan) November 28, 2017
Your dad will never love you eric
— TechnicallyRon (@TechnicallyRon) November 28, 2017
Um, Eric, the Navajo Nation—of which the Code Talkers are members—has issued a press statement making clear that they found your father’s use of the name offensive. It’s up to THEM to decide, not you.
— Sybill Trelawney (@SybilT2) November 28, 2017
Y’all stop. I don’t think @EricTrump knows that Pocahontas is an actual person and not a fictional characters.
Like father like son.
Bless their little low-IQ hearts. https://t.co/ThZf0H06Gy
— michaelharriot (@michaelharriot) November 28, 2017
