There was a time when major political events like elections, confirmation hearings, etc. were shared by the news. Then, people would have a few fights about it over dinner, stop talking to their racist uncle for a week and that was it. Politicians and their children were distant figures unless one of them happened to be a friend or family member. Now is not that time and Donald Trump Jr. just proved it in a big way.
We don't have to wait for an approved and carefully crafted official release to know what our politicians think anymore. For better or worse, we now live in an era where politicians post memes, make comments, and trash talk right there for the world to see and in real time. Social media changed all that.
Donald Trump Jr. just turned to social media to mock, belittle, and minimize the sexual assault accusations against Brett Kavanaugh - and he did it with a meme. The image, which he posted on Instagram, shows a torn out piece of notebook paper with the classic "check yes or no" scenario written out in childish handwriting.
Trump Jr.'s caption brushes off the situation as "Dems and their usual nonsense games"
Many of his Instagram followers cheered him on, though quite a few chided him for making fun of victims of sexual assault and pointed out that it was important to find the truth regardless of political affiliation. Kavanaugh is accused of assaulting a young woman about 35 years ago. She says that Kavanaugh grabbed her, pinned her down, and groped her while another man watched. She was 15 at the time of the incident. Kavanaugh's team denies the incident and the day after the accusation came to light, they produced documentation from several dozen women saying they vouched for his character. People are questioning the timing of the accusation as well as the reason Kavanaugh's team just so happened to have these documents if they didn't know this assault would come to light.
We don't know how the situation will turn out yet, but most people don't see that as the relevant issue with the meme being posted. To a lot of people, posting the meme and mocking any victim is just tasteless for anyone to do, but particularly disappointing for Trump Jr to do.
Twitter is pretty heated about it, but few seem to be legitimately surprised.
Eventually Trump Jr. did respond to people criticizing him for making fun of any rape accusation. He chose to comment on his own Instragram meme sating:
An anonymous letter from an anonymous source that a senator sat on for over 2 months that's talks about a very public figure who has been scrutinized for decades that the FBI refused to even look at conveniently appears right as he's finishing confirmation?
Yea that's credible... you can't really buy that crap can you?
Based on that response, Trump Jr. doesn't feel like posting the meme crossed any lines. We want to know what you think.
H/T: Twitter, Instagram, Huffington Post
@lpeterp/Bluesky
@FPWellman/X
@bobsbeatgmail.com5/Threads