Tuesday morning felt a little anticlimactic after Monday’s legendary, historic, one-for-the-ages meltdown by Donald Trump on Twitter, which could be why we here at DC Tribune laughed so hard at the President’s latest target on the social media platform: New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio. More specifically, Trump went after DeBlasio’s use of a particular phrase as a slogan, most recently in front of a newly-opened school — “Promises Made, Promises Kept.”
Bill DeBlasio, the high taxing Mayor of NYC, just stole my campaign slogan: PROMISES MADE PROMISES KEPT! That’s not at all nice. No imagination! @foxandfriends
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 21, 2018
Now, we’re going to give the President the benefit of the doubt here and assume that he doesn’t believe he invented the words “promises,” “made,” and “kept.”
But that’s us. The internet was not quite as kind to Donald Trump, and the world’s biggest collective They pointed out a few flaws in the President’s statement. Namely, that the phrase has been in popular use for a really long time — as in, it’s not even the first time it’s been used by an actual President — and the fact that Trump seems to have a knack for pinching phrases for his own use as well.
Any number of tweeters pointed out that President Lyndon Johnson actually wrote a book in 1967 with that name; an equal number pointed out that Trump is unlikely to have read it and unlikelier to remember it if he had.
But perhaps the funniest part of the entire affair is how many people chimed in with images of campaign buttons from Ronald Reagan’s 1980 run at the presidency, whose slogan was the now-iconic “Make America Great Again.”
Now, you didn’t think Trump thought that up all by himself, right?
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) August 21, 2018
— Officer Vic Berger IV (@VicBergerIV) August 21, 2018
And as for the “Promises” slogan? That was used long since as well, even if you don’t count those pesky books:
And here’s another one: pic.twitter.com/oyWmnRewO5
— Andrew Wortman (@AmoneyResists) August 21, 2018
Of course, the whole ordeal took a slightly darker turn as some pointed out that another phrase Trump loves to use — “America First” — was first used by some rather unsavory types long before Steves Bannon and Miller ushered the era of white nationalism into the White House with the help of Russian hackers:
Yeah… No imagination at all pic.twitter.com/ATar5OABgX
— Jesus Twinkie (@jesus_twinkie) August 21, 2018
It looks like it might be a long day in the Oval Office.
Featured image via screen capture
