There is no better indication that civility is dead than the Internet’s response to the death of President Trump’s brother, Robert, on Saturday evening after reportedly being hospitalized in New York for brain bleeds following a recent fall.
President Trump issued a statement shortly after his brother’s death, saying his brother was also his “best friend” and would be “greatly missed,” prompting an ugly response from faceless trolls.
“Almost immediately after, tweets calling for the president’s death were posted using the hashtag #wrongtrump, which quickly became the number four trending topic on the website,” the U.S. Sun reported.
According to Fox News, #wrongtrump was the second highest trending on Twitter by Sunday morning, with more than 77,000 tweets.
Twitter user @TalbertSwan, who claims to be a pastor and NAACP president in his Twitter bio, tweeted, “Dear Grim Reaper, You took the #wrongtrump.” Another Twitter user, @Strandjunker, tweeted, “To be honest, the first thing I do every morning and the last thing I do every night is check if Trump had been arrested, infected or died. Anyone with me? #wrongtrump.”
Conservatives responded in anger, calling out Twitter for allowing #wrongtrump to trend, despite the media giant’s reputation for manipulating trends and targeting conservative information under the guise of stopping so-called “hate speech” and “misinformation.”
“If a conservative tweeted stuff like #wrongtrump about John Lewis or some other Dem politician Twitter would instaban them,” one user noted.
Conservatives have become increasingly frustrated with Twitter’s bias, paving the way for the rise of alternative social-media platforms such as Parler, which has been described as a “conservative Twitter.” According to Boston.com, Parler gained one million users in just one week following Twitter’s decision to put a fifth warning label on one of President Trump’s tweets, bringing Parler’s total to nearly three million by early July. Senator Ted Cruz even tweeted that he had joined the platform, describing Parler as a platform that “gets what free speech is all about.”
Meanwhile, critics claim the hateful hashtag is nothing new from the Left.
Charlie Kirk, founder and president of Turning Point USA, tweeted, “The fact that ‘The Wrong Trump’ is trending after the president’s brother died tells you everything you need to know about the left.”
Buzz Patterson, candidate for the U.S. House in California, opined, “I can’t believe Twitter is allowing #wrongtrump to trend in response to Robert Trump’s passing. This is one of their most egregious acts yet…!”
Erroll Webber, a black Republican running for Congress in California, observed that the sort of vitriolic hatred coming from the Left is rarely seen from conservatives. “Remember all the conservatives wishing death to Obama and his family for eight years? No, you don’t. Because it never happened,” Webber wrote.
Fortunately, not all anti-Trumpers celebrated the trend. Mental health advocate Kenidra Wood tweeted her distaste for the hashtag. “I dislike trump with my whole heart & he will never get my vote but the #wrongtrump hashtag makes me so uncomfortable as a human being with a heart and compassion for life,” said Wood.
Another user voiced his dislike for the hashtag, despite his opposition to Trump, implying it was hypocritical for liberals who claim to be disgusted by Trump’s behavior to engage in such an ugly trend. “‘dont stoop to their level’, ‘two wrongs dont make a right’, ‘be the bigger person’ .. no1 else got taught these lessons as a kid? all the lefties who are disgusted by Trump’s general behavior now tweeting #wrongtrump when the guy’s brother has died. Classy,” he tweeted.
Another twitter user said the trend may be exactly what the Trump campaign needed to tip the scales in Trump’s favor ahead of the election. “The Trump campaign just got a gift. The #WrongTrump trending on Twitter just probably pushed the majority of “on the fence” voters to Trump’s side. It’s disgusting/disturbing the level of hate that is in some people,” @teresacates wrote.
Unfortunately, even those who bemoaned the use of the hashtag were in fact driving the trend by repeatedly using #wrongtrump in their tweets.
Not unexpectedly, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his newly announced vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris extended their condolences to the president in polite tweets.
It’s shameful their supporters did not follow their example.
Photo: Evgeniy Anikeev / iStock / Getty Images Plus
