President-elect Donald Trump is such a hypocrite.
Not that several of us don’t already know that, but one would have thought that Trump would tone down his hypocritical comments now that he is the president-elect, but it does not seem to be the case.
As you might already know, the election of Trump as the 45th president of the United States has sparked widespread protests across several American cities, with New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Atlanta, Dallas, Omaha, and Portland all reporting anti-Trump demonstrations and protests , according to the Washington Post .
Several universities have also seen students take part in marches and vigils, shouting slogans like “Not My President” and “F**k Donald Trump.” In fact, the situation in Portland developed to such an alarming level that authorities officially declared the protests as a “riot” on Thursday night, with the police saying that the protesters had engaged in criminal behavior, vandalism, and intimidation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkGaze0NGPI
Donald Trump, for his part, took to Twitter to condemn the protests, blaming “professional protesters” for the uproar in cities. He even went one step further and blamed the media for having incited the protests, calling the ordeals “unfair.”
Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 11, 2016
Every president-elect has to endure some sort of a backlash, and Donald Trump’s overwhelming unpopularity certainly meant that he would have to endure a slew of these protests. But calling them unfair lays bare his hypocrisy in more ways than one. Ironically, he is the same man who refused to guarantee a peaceful transition of power if he had lost the election. Trump had repeatedly called the election “rigged,” and his behavior had surely insinuated that he would not go down without a fight, even if that meant resorting to unconstitutional methods of registering a protest. He had once even remarked that his supporters must be armed for any eventuality.
But now that he has won the election, he has termed widespread protests against him as unfair. Remember, he is also the same man who had called for a revolution on the streets of America after Barack Obama was re-elected to the White House in 2012.
“He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!”
We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012
In fact, president-elect Donald Trump has been a sharp critic of the electoral college, having even remarked in 2012 that it was phony and did not give precedence to the voice of the majority in America. Trump had even made false comments about Barack Obama having lost the popular vote in 2012 to Mitt Romney, when in fact, it was the Democratic nominee who had won the popular vote too.
Ironically enough, Trump won the 2016 presidential election thanks to the electoral college. His margin of victory in several of the swing states was less than 1 percent. The popular vote had him trailing Hillary Clinton by more than 200,000 votes.
You can check out Donald Trump’s Twitter feed in 2012, where he called for people to take to the streets in a revolution. These tweets have now been deleted , as reported by the Verge .
The fact is that a number of things that Donald Trump railed against in 2012, and even earlier, are precisely the things which have helped him clinch the presidency in 2016. And yet when he needs to attack someone, Trump does not mind using them, as was the case when he condemned the results of the 2012 election, which Barack Obama had won. But when it comes to defending himself, Donald Trump does not mind doing a complete U-turn from his own positions earlier. It is something that we have seen earlier in his campaign, but it is a remarkably dangerous quality to have in a president.
At least he should be glad that Hillary Clinton, or any of his detractors including Barack Obama, are not calling for a revolution now that Trump is the president-elect. Maybe there is a lesson Donald Trump should learn from that.
[Featured Image by Win McNamee/Getty Images]