BY AILIYAH ALIM – STAFF WRITER
It is no secret that the Trump Administration has been controversial. Throughout his eight months in office, Trump has faced public criticism for his undisclosed and suspect ties to Russia, aggressive immigration policies, mocking American citizens with disabilities, and his apparent desire for escalation with North Korea.
Though not the most severe of the list of controversies plaguing the President, his regular use of Twitter has made the news more than once for shocking or inappropriate comments. Last month, Trump reached the peak of his Twitter controversy. Just before he was scheduled to appear before the United Nations General Assembly, Trump retweeted a GIF of himself swinging a golf club and hitting a golf ball. This is, at first, appeared to be a normal video of President Trump, as he has spent 68 of his 255 days in office at the golf course, as of August 10, 2017. The GIF becomes controversial when it cuts to a video from 2011 of former Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tripping in the doorway of an aircraft, edited so it seems that Trump’s golf ball caused her to fall.
This tweet provoked many responses from both supporters and opponents of the President. While many condemned this promotion of violent imagery, several came to Trump’s defense, insisting that critics lack a sense of humor.
The controversy of the GIF is compounded by the Twitter user who created the tweet, @Fuctupmind. Among his frequent pro-Trump messages and memes, the user has also used this social media platform as a means of disparaging transgender individuals and Jews. By retweeting this material, the President has inadvertently supported these divisive views.
Former Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub reported the tweet to Twitter for violating the platform’s rules of conduct, and condemned the act with a tweet of his own.
“The President of the United States just retweeted a video vignette that imagines him assaulting his political rival. The man is unfit.”
Trump’s inflammatory tweet was not the only Presidential news making headlines in September. After his cancellation of DACA and more discoveries concerning alleged connections to Russia, many are questioning whether this divisive President should be able to continue leading the country. Though many of his actions are unprecedented for any American Presidency, controversy does not entail impeachment. Only a breach of the law will prevent Trump from seeing his term to completion, regardless of how inflammatory his term may be.