Thread by @ReadingThePix

1/ A photographic look at Trump’s meeting with survivors of #religiouspersecution. A thread about suffering and political opportunism. (Photo of Esther Bitrus, one of the woman kidnapped by #BokoHaram in Nigeria in 2014, distracted by the swarm of media.)

2/ People were taken aback by Trump’s ignorance of his guests at the @WhiteHouse #religiouspersecution photo op on Wednesday. There was particular outrage over how he dealt with #NadiaMurad, the Yazidi woman from Northern Iraq.

3/ Others were equally upset over Trump’s ignorance about the Rohingya genocide.

4/ But what the media and public hardly see anymore is the flippancy of the format: Tump front and center, and the rest, wedged around as backers and props, on stage to soundbite deep trauma and violation. What Uighur sympathizers visually had to work with:

5/ This screenshot from an Asian YouTube show provides inadvertent commentary. Not knowing any better, we’d swear the scene with this commentator (remember Melania on her b-day?) was a meme.

6/ For more awkwardness, consider Nyima Lhamo, a Tibetan Buddhist. She explains she’s from the homeland of the Dalai Lama, her people oppressed by the Chinese. The lean could be mistaken for a bow.

7/ Nyima Lhamo also made the @WhiteHouse’s “Photos of the Week” press release. On top of Lhamo's worshipful gesture, Trump basks in the admiration of those who deserve the real admiration and praise. (This is right before Trump asks her to give the Dalai Lama his regards.)

8/ But there was a larger propaganda agenda that wasn’t explored very deeply. As the WAPO headline indicates, the gathering was red meat aimed at the religious right.

9/ The group was seeded w Christians, several of them missionaries, and it had its effect.

10/ Trump’s trade war enemy, the Chinese, also came in for special targeting, including four survivors of Chinese oppression.

11/ And, with Trump’s focus on 2020 and with Florida's electoral votes in play, a Baptist Minister from Cuba taking aim at Castro was also advantageous.

12/ And then, there was the Holocaust survivor and German Jew, Irene Weiss, who actually lives in DC. Ms. Weiss was fixed at Trump's side, telegraphing to evangelicals (as POTUS does endlessly, especially stalking @Ilhan ) that Israel and Jerusalem are the highest priority.

13 / Overall, one has to mourn the media scrum confessional, a fact Trump doesn't even bother hiding. In a normal world, an encounter like this deserves privacy and true face to face. But Trump, as you see from these @WhiteHouse Flickr shots, lives for the mics and the cameras.

14/ So, there’s your portrait, the survivors like captives (again).


15/ The exploitation was no lost on the @WhiteHouse photo press. This devastating portrait of the disconnect was distributed by Getty. As the figures in the background feel for one of the survivors, what could be more sad? (End Thread.)