A combination of Trump Derangement Syndrome and social media's ability to spread misleading dumbness faster than a speeding GIF created another perfect storm of idiocy on Thursday.
The VIRAL moment where Trump got totally OWNED this time? It was when the First Lady of Poland, Agata Kornhauser-Duda, totally SNUBBED the president to shake Melania Trump's hand before him after the conclusion of his speech in Warsaw.
Look, this two-second clip is all you need to see. Trump reached out to shake, but Kornhauser-Duda passed him by and shook Melania's instead. He. Is. Humiliated. Retweet, share, and bask in his fail.
LEGEND pic.twitter.com/UGKw0XWpPv
— David (@davidclewis) July 6, 2017
Burn. Slay. Queen. Resist.
Or as one CNN commentator put it:
OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD https://t.co/Ngdtuuu21q
— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) July 6, 2017
There's one small problem, though. There was no snub.
NBC News' Bradd Jaffy supplied the full clip. The Polish first lady literally shook Trump's hand after Melania's.
Folks, Poland's first lady did not diss Trump's handshake attempt. She was looking at Melania, shook her hand, then shook Trump's. Stop. pic.twitter.com/ta8DNsv0Th
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) July 6, 2017
But that doesn't matter. Trump looked awkward for half a second, and that, period, is, period, AWESOME, period.
The list of outlets to write shake-gate up includes Time, Washington Post, USA Today, New York Magazine, Newsweek, The Telegraph, Vanity Fair, AOL, BBC, HuffPost, The Hill, New York Daily News and The Root.
Some of them actually said the first lady "rejected" his handshake. Newsweek's video clip of the exchange cut off before showing how Kornhauser-Duda and Trump shook hands. Vanity Fair wrote she "smoothly avoided" it.
What?! She shook his hand one second later! I hate the term "fake news"—and this is the dictionary definition of it!
Why do this? Why give Trump supporters another opportunity to question your fairness? This saga is reminiscent of the Barack Obama era and how the 44th president drove some conservatives out of their minds.
I remember mainstream outlets, with a rightful measure of disdain, covering right-wing freak-outs to such silliness as Obama putting his feet on the Resolute Desk or saluting a member of the military while holding a coffee.
To me, drumming up such nothing moments into big to-dos reeked of desperation, and revealed how some conservatives' intense dislike for Obama had clouded their judgment and pumped up legitimately stupid stories into bigger deals than they were.
I'm not innocent. I did a post last year about Hillary Clinton slipping while she left the podium after a campaign speech. It has more than 1 million views on YouTube. But good lord, at least that actually happened.
We're seeing this same insanity now with mainstream media coverage of Trump, whose pitched battles with the press may be part of a wider strategy to bait journalists into overreaction and hysterical coverage.
For all of Trump's bluster, half-truths, and loose grip on policy, his points about the media's hostility to him remain. Why is the press so intent on making these points for him?