A while back, I started a running analysis of every Trump tweet where the president used a parenthesis. I hoped to find some insight into his thinking, a window into how the president structures his sentences and word choices for maximum impact.
Instead, I found a scattershot pair of thumbs who seems to barf any thought he has into run-on sentences full of parenthetical thoughts that often either don’t need to exist, or contradict what’s come before.
Has anything changed for April? Has the president learned to wield his mighty 280 character sword more efficiently?
You be the judge.
“Liberal Democrat” is a favorite phrase of right wing infotainment bloviators, so it’s not a surprise Trump would use it. This was a portent of how he’s spend April – ranting about immigration and demonizing the human rights caravan that makes its way north every year.
Utterly pointless parenthesis. “Border Patrol Agents and ICE are GREAT” is the exact same sentence as “Border Patrol Agents (and ICE) are GREAT.” Oh, and the weird and unnecessary use of capital letters goes back to the Tea Party movement.
Nothing to see here, just a president extorting a private company and insulting the leaders of a part of the executive branch. It’s also not true that the Post Office loses money on Amazon, as private package delivery deals are one of the biggest revenue streams for the agency.
The president has no time for Puerto Rico, but has time to line edit Washington Post headlines. Nice.
Trump uses a parenthesis to advocate the Justice Department release classified information to exonerate him. Pinochet couldn’t do any better.
A Trump Tower resident died in this fire, caused by an electrical short on a floor that didn’t have sprinklers. Like the chintzy slumlord that he is, Trump spent decades fighting New York City sprinkler laws, because he didn’t want to pay for them. Trump never acknowledged the death, but did make sure we knew he knows ladies can fight fires too.
Trump vents about the leaks from his office by pretending they’re not real.
Honest to God, why not just say “short speech over Skype?”
A two-part tweet that bounces all over the place, as indicated by the two useless parentheses. BAD!
Unlike the Clintons…what? Bill Clinton actually testified to Ken Starr of his own volition, causing Starr to withdraw the subpoena he issued. Also, three weeks after this tweet, Ty Cobb (who is not the president’s special counsel) announced he was retiring.
One of countless tweets where Trump lashes out at his former FBI Director. The notion that he “wanted a job” is insane, given that he already had a job until Trump fired him.
We’ve become so inured to Trump’s nonsense that we don’t even pause to think about troubling it is for a president to use his official platform to advocate throwing an opponent in jail without due process. That is insane.
Trump has a point (!) about the Lynch/Clinton tarmac meeting. It never should have happened – even if they didn’t talk about anything of importance to the election. The Clintons are good at a lot of things, including being their own worst enemies.
You know which president didn’t have too many lawyers?
More grade-school level insults directed toward Comey.
Just the president accusing his former FBI Director of perjury. Move along. “Senator G” is Lindsey Graham.
National polls had Hillary Clinton winning by 1-2 points. They were correct. Where they went wrong is at the state level. So much went wrong at the state level.
There’s no way to know that this man doesn’t exist. In fact, the man was later pointed out (though not confirmed) that the sketch was a dead ringer for Michael Calamari, a former security executive of Trump.
Also, you know who never was accused of paying hush money to a porn star he slept with while his wife was home with a new baby?
The repetitive hammering of Comey continues. “Democrats were the actual colluders” is a constant right wing infotainment accusation that never is presented with supporting evidence.
Make America Good (Hopefully Great) Again. Speaking of obstruction, remember when Mitch McConnell obstructed Merrick Garland’s SCOTUS nomination for nearly a year? Or when he obstructed an Obama nominee for so long she died while waiting for confirmation? Good times, great memories.
Obviously, North Korea has not agreed to end their nuclear program, and likely never will. Having nuclear weapons puts them at the adults table of world affairs. In fact, it’s far more likely that the US will pull back on troop commitments and ease sanctions in exchange for Kim Jong Un committing to denuclearize at some point – a point likely never to come.
They closed their test site because it collapsed, and they don’t need to test anymore because they know the weapons work. Not so great for the World.
Street level extortion from the leader of the free world, with a meaningless shot at the UN thrown in.
This is true, but Trump has little to do with it – and black unemployment is still several points higher than white unemployment.
The Secret Service did dispute the allegation that Jackson drunkenly banged on a woman’s door until he was restrained. Of course, the White House could have gotten ahead of all of the accusations against Jackson by actually, you know, vetting him.
The president, who once claimed he had no time to watch TV, tweets constantly about things he sees on TV. Also, that dossier is looking less and less “fraudulent” by the day.
Donald Trump, art critic. Though he’s right about the dinner needing to be put to rest. In a world where the president has declared the media enemies of the people, the media should not be chummy with the president.
Trump ends his parentheticals for the month by rehashing a parenthesis from three weeks ago, like a bird that flies in ever contracting circles until it disappears up its own ass.
If you’ve made it this far – well, you’re a good (great) friend of the blog.
Mike Rothschild 
[…] This post is updated continuously, and continues into April. […]