Trumps Compare Syrian Refugee Issue To Poisoned Skittles. Internet Responds Well.
A calm Monday night. The northeast settling down after a couple days of uncertainty and terror activity. Donald Trump Jr. fires off the following tweet.
This image says it all. Let’s end the politically correct agenda that doesn’t put America first. #trump2016 pic.twitter.com/9fHwog7ssN
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 19, 2016
Internet obviously explodes w/some super aggressive tweets.
Skittles. pic.twitter.com/inCjwrwzfd
— Nish Weiseth (@NishWeiseth) September 20, 2016
Hey @DonaldJTrumpJr, this is one of the millions of children you compared to a poisoned Skittle today: https://t.co/SDSGw0eUIP pic.twitter.com/HuhY9RGvWW
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) September 20, 2016
Professor Blaze coming in hot.
If you told me that three @skittles in each bowl are poisonous, I’d look at the data and conclude that you’re wrong about Skittle safety.
— matt blaze (@mattblaze) September 20, 2016
Boom roasted. Skittles takes a side.
A rep for @Skittles gives me their response to @DonaldJTrumpJr pic.twitter.com/OmkJQkIqug
— Seth Abramovitch (@SethAbramovitch) September 20, 2016
This irrelevant loser chimes in.
.@DonaldJTrumpJr Seek professional help for your paranoia. And somebody to make GOOD analogies for you. #SeriouslySonnySkittles ?
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) September 20, 2016
The Syrian refugee crisis is a complicated, under-discussed issue. Syria is a fucking shitshow. It’s a war zone. You know this largely because of ISIS. It’s their home base. It’s where they began. It’s where their capital is. And that’s all true — ISIS runs rampant in Syria. But as shitty and globally covered as they are, they don’t even control a third of Syria. There are dozens of other rebel groups. There’s the Syrian government. There’s Syrian Kurdish forces. All battling from different degrees of good and bad. It’s a shitshow.
As a function of this shitshow, millions and millions of Syrians are fleeing. They’re leaving their homes, their villages, their entire lives in an effort to survive by relocation. As of February 2016, 6.6 million people are internally displaced within Syria and a total of 13.5 million require humanitarian assistance. It’s an awful reality for a massive number of innocent people quite simply trying to survive.
The traditional American approach? Vet and admit a chunk of these people. We’re the melting pot. That’s what we do. Basically none of us are purely “American.” We’re all something. I’m Armenian, for example, and my great grandparents reunited in America after fleeing the Armenian genocide carried out by the Turkish (Ottoman) bastards in 1915. Not an all that different situation.
The opposition to welcoming Syrian refugees? Well opponents claim that all it takes is a few people — out of thousands and thousands of refugees — with terrorist ambitions to put the kibosh on the whole thing and justify admitting no one. That’s the side Trump has taken. It aligns nicely with the whole Trump Wall thing.
This tweet? It’s obviously a bit of a stretch and an oversimplification of the issue, but the reaction is classic-2016-internet-overreaction-101. Trump Jr. posting an analogy that presents the issue in a way that will sway a few people to Trump’s side of the issue is what goes on day in and day out in elections. It’s not a deeply accurate analogy. But it’s also not an analogy that says “hey those collaterally damaged children are the same thing as Skittles so fuck them.” Trump Jr. didn’t tweet that and implying that he did is just as ridiculous as the Skittle analogy itself. Just another example that people will go to any lengths to sensationalize issues in partisan effort to push their agenda.