One of the more inane but endlessly repeated GOP talking points is that, as Sen. Tillis, says, “The president rightfully believes he has been targeted since the election, before he was even sworn in." Call it the "DAY ONE" trope. /1
washingtonpost.com/politics/trump…
washingtonpost.com/politics/trump…
As Trump himself said last month at a rally in Minneapolis: “From Day 1, the wretched Washington swamp has been trying to nullify the results of a truly great and democratic election."/2
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nytimes.com/2019/10/10/us/…
I recently responded to AG Barr's iteration of this sentiment with a tweet, which, I think, gets at why this self-pitying view is ridiculous. /3
As I suggested in the above tweet, anyone who (logically) assumed that Trump would govern as he campaigned was absolutely correct to "target" him with special scrutiny from (or even before) "Day 1." of his presidency./4
Trump and his defenders who complain about him being "targeted," never seem to ask why that was so scrutinized and suggest that the very act of targeting him is evidence of a problem rather than the prudent thing to do, given his track record./5
What if the serial bank-robber Willie Sutton's defense at trial was that he had been the long-time "target" of the law enforcement community? Wouldn't the proper response to that claim have been, "Of course you were."/6
And doesn't the evidence show, given what we know of the Trump presidency (and, doubtless, there's a lot of wrong-doing still to be uncovered), that those who "targeted" Trump from "Day 1" were right to do so?/7
