Donald Trump Is the Snowflake His Supporters Warned You About
- Charlie Biscotto
- Jan 22, 2017
- 3 min read
They think that everything they do is special, no matter how much actual work they put in. If you disagree with them, they turn into a blubbering mess. You expend energy you should spend doing your job just trying to lift their self-esteem, because at the end of the day, they need their participation trophy.
I'm not talking about millenials. I'm talking about the 45th President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump.
In the days after Trump's election, Kellyanne Conway decried the "precious snowflakes" who mourned the election of an overtly racist and misogynistic president. Sean Hannity called out "coddled, crybaby liberals" and their participation trophy culture because they were upset that a man whose foundation actually violated the law through self-dealing and bribery won an election by accusing his opponent of being crooked.
A few months on, it's become clear who the real "precious snowflake" is. When Meryl Streep used her platform at the Golden Globes to criticize him, he lashed out on Twitter and called her overrated, despite having singled her out for praise in the past. When John Lewis said he would not attend Trump's inauguration because of Russian attempts at election interference, he complained that John Lewis should focus on his own district which, it turned out, is in pretty good shape. Every perceived slight is cause for Trump to lash out in defense of his own fragile sense of self-worth.
So when Trump promised a "perhaps record-setting turnout" for his inauguration and then got nothing of the sort, you already know how he responded. Now, if it weren't for Donald's promises and prognostications, this attendance would hardly be noteworthy. It appears to have been higher than the attendance of past Republican inaugurations. Washington, D.C. and its suburbs vote heavily Democratic (making it all the more noxious that Congressional Republicans routinely override D.C.'s desire for self-governance). Fine. It's harder for Donald's voters to get to D.C., especially on a Friday where most people are still expected to work. It could have been left there, with some snickering from the left and the rest of the country moving on.
And then, the day after his inauguration, President Trump turned what was supposed to be a conciliatory trip to visit disheartened CIA employees into a flame-throwing session directed at the media, drawing the ire of outgoing director John Brennan. Even when Trump scheduled an event that was specifically designed to say how much he cares about another group of people, he had to make it about himself and his coverage in the media.
Later in the day, he'd send Press Secretary Sean Spicer out to promote a whole host of falsehoods and misrepresentations. Chris Cilizza of the Washington Post has annotated those remarks here for your enjoyment. Kellyanne Conway appeared this morning on Meet the Press where she threatened to alter the administrations relationship with the media over their (accurate) reporting and called Spicer's falsehoods "alternative facts" (for linguistic construction purposes, we should note that alternative facts are actually lies, much like the alt-right is actually neo-Nazi). Reince Priebus appeared on Fox News Sunday and continued propagating this bizarre notion that Sean Spicer's lies were about battling the media, but offered no defense for why they would battle the media when the media is reporting accurately.
In this sense, I almost feel bad for Spicer, Conway, and Priebus. They're all competent, accomplished professionals and they have to waste their time fighting the battles that Donald Trump is instructing them to fight on his behalf. And it's all because Mr. Trump, the precious snowflake that he is, doesn't just need a participation trophy. He needs his participation trophy to say "1st Place," engraved in gold and constantly polished by people who should be spending their time working on behalf of the American people.
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