Journalists have discovered a curious thing about Donald Trump’s Twitter history: Any time Our Dumb President manages to fuck things up in a new and surprising way, it’s a safe bet he spent the last administration railing against Obama for doing the exact same thing—even if Obama didn’t actually do it. Take Trump’s well-documented habit of spending his time golfing instead of being president. It’s bad enough the new president can’t deal with the pressures of the job, but it’s especially hard to take in light of past tweets like this one about Obama:
Similarly, now that Trump has launched missiles into Syria, this 2013 tweet looks even more ominous than it did at the time:
It seems clear that Trump’s vision of Obama was based almost entirely on projection; he assumed Obama would want to do the same terrible things he is now enthusiastically doing himself. Seen in that light, do any of Trump’s other past tweets give us information on what he might be planning now that the presidency is his? To find out, we studied Trump’s timeline, on the lookout for clues and warnings. As you’ll see from these 100 percent real tweets Trump sent over the past few years that are definitely not made up, the results were not reassuring.
The few mainstream pundits who were reading Trump’s Twitter feed back in 2013 were baffled by this tweet, given that Obama was not, in fact, covering the Lincoln bedroom windows with tin foil. But now that rumors of a “lights-out” zone in the Trump White House are beginning to surface, this looks oddly prescient.
There’s no throne constructed of human bones in the State Dining Room—and even if there were, it’s outlandish to believe, as Trump did, that Obama was harnishing barely understood demonic magicks to bind the souls of his victims into the very warp and weave of his chair, causing it to emit an unceasing shriek of agony. Trump has kept reporters out of the State Dining Room since moving in, so here’s hoping Trump’s upcoming, hastily announced, “Normal White House Correspondents Dinner for White House Correspondents at the White House” won’t have any unpleasant surprises. It sounds like the menu will be unmissable: According to a White House official who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak on the record about the matter, “You might say we’re serving … soul food. Ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
No one knew what Trump was talking about at the time, and his follow-up appearance on Fox & Friends, in which he repeatedly claimed it was essential Obama be impeached “before Pluto is in retrograde” didn’t clarify matters. Did he know something we didn’t about Obama, or was he subconsciously talking about himself? Someone should ask him, if he ever emerges from the gigantic orrery tower he’s constructed on the White House grounds.
Trump was roundly criticized for referring to the president’s daughters as “ravenous, demonic hatchlings” in this tweet, and the Secret Service quickly reassured the public that no agents had gone missing. So far, that hasn’t changed under a Trump administration—a Secret Service representative emailed to reassure us that “all of our agents are happy, healthy humans who grow plumper and jucier by the day.” But given Trump’s track record with golfing, will this tweet someday look like a warning we should have heeded?
Although Hillary’s economic stimulus package did not contain any plans to reduce our planet to a scorched hellscape where a constant superacidic drizzle melts human flesh like butter, that didn’t stop the Clinton campaign from spending an entire week in a tailspin after her initial response—a three-emoji tweet reading “☔️🔥💀”—was widely misinterpreted as a confirmation. Savvy campaign strategy on Trump’s part, or a sign of things to come? Only the dead-eyed construction workers shuffling mindlessly in and out of Trump Tower all day and night know for sure!
Uh, check the date, doofus, you’re already President! Not only did Trump seem to be unfamiliar with the American system of government—almost as though he couldn’t believe it had been so easy to amass more political power than any other human on the planet—he ruined the surprise rollout of his signature program, the American Heroes Volunteer Corps, later that day! Fortunately, after a visit to the program’s headquarters and processing facility that morning, Trump emerged visibly re-energized, flush with good health, and eager to encourage all Americans to ask what they could do for their country. In that moment, as commentators from across the political spectrum were quick to proclaim, Trump truly became president. But will this tweet read any differently after we’ve all served our mandatory stints in the American Heroes Volunteer Corps?
Jesus, does this guy ever say what he means?
