By George Fallar 
Vice president elect Mike Pence attended a performance of “Hamilton” on Friday, November 18. He was booed by the audience and, after the show, was presented with a speech from the cast.
While Pence was escorted out by his Secret Service detail, appearing to miss the speech from the cast, he later stated he actually heard what was said and was not offended by either the boos or the speech. Pence said that the boos and cheers “… is what freedom sounds like.”
Like him or not, that’s the answer a mature statesman would make.
His remarkably thin skinned boss, however, tweeted otherwise.
Donald dropped two tweets within eleven minutes of each other on November 10, 2016. The first hit Twitter at 6:48 AM and the second at 6:56 AM. Both tweets were related to the Pence experience at “Hamilton”.
Why? To deflect attention away from a series of stories damaging to his reputation and perhaps his future as President.
And… it worked. Again. Attention of his fans, his enemies, and the media all shifted their focus to a series of childish tweets instead of continuing to monitor and discuss the real stories.
Guilty As Charged
Less than ten minutes (6:39 AM 11/10/2016) prior to the first of the two original outraged “Hamilton” tweets, Don tweeted about settling the Trump U fraud lawsuit against him.
The story is that three lawsuits were settled for $25 million total. The San Diego plaintiffs will split $21 million, the New York plaintiffs will split $3 million, and Trump will pay the State of New York a $1 million penalty for running an unlicensed university.
Trump maintained all along he would never settle, stating during a Republican debate in February:
It’s something I could have settled many times. I could settle it right now for very little money, but I don’t want to do it out of principle.
He was sure to add the predictable spin that he settled because he needed to “focus on our country.”
Nobody believes that.
The real reasons the suit was settled were because Don was scheduled to testify and didn’t want that exposure and, of course, because his lawyers undoubtedly advised him they were likely to lose. He has a long, easily verifiable history of doing the same thing repeatedly throughout his career of being sued.
Tweets To Distract
But, if you look at the “likes” and the “retweets” for the lawsuit settlement tweet, you can see it drew 12,208 retweets and 56,574 likes.
Then, look at the traffic starting ten minutes later on the “Hamilton” tweets. The first had 33,126 retweets and 114,092 likes, well more than double the lawsuit tweet. The second followed ten minutes later with well more than TRIPLE the retweets and nearly 140,000 likes.
That’s a significant difference and it indicates people jumped off Don’s explanation of settling (“losing” is such a yooge word) the Trump U suit and became enamored of the more “fun” and sensational story of Pence being booed and “mistreated” by a bunch of Broadway actors. The SECOND tweet sucked even more eyeballs off the Trump U tweet, and the job was complete.
Don knows how to use Twitter to his advantage. Remember his “no puppet” answer to Hillary Clinton? While the jury is out on whether he is a puppet of Putin, in this case, he’s right.
HE is not the puppet, YOU are!
Other Examples
During the campaign, remember Donald trotting out women for a “press conference” before one of the debates? That was specifically to quash the storm of controversy about his “pussy grab” conversation with Billy Bush whereby he admitted to sexually harassing, if not assaulting, women. He brought the women to a table speaking about their experiences with Bill Clinton. It mostly worked.
Also during the campaign, you might remember another press conference called so Donald could admit to the error of his ways with his racist birther movement. He did no such thing, offering a perfunctory “I did it” in front of a bunch of ex military guys including Medal of Honor winners. Then, after the “press conference”, he invited everybody (except the press) to take a tour of his new hotel in DC.
Who even remembers Trump people illegally visiting Cuba during the embargo to solicit business? How many people remember his Foundation money being used to pay a lawsuit settlement in Florida or to illegally donate to a political campaign? Remember New York State shutting down the Trump Foundation so they couldn’t accept any new donations?
Most don’t. Trump fans choose not to, anyway, but others also manage to forget.
Hucksters know how to deflect attention, that’s how they slip the ace up their sleeve. Ethics are not even a consideration for Trump and people like him. The end justifies the means and all means are on the table.
Hopefully voters will insist he rolls up his sleeves so we can see if he’s cheating. Hopefully somebody insists his tax returns are released. Hopefully people will tighten up the ethics rules so presidents will be forced to remove themselves from the businesses of their former lives.
Washington Post – For foreign diplomats, Trump hotel is place to be 11/18/2016
LA Times – Donald Trump agrees to $25-million settlement in lawsuits against Trump University 11/18/2016
Fox News – Pence says no need for apology after ‘Hamilton’ jeers, lecture 11/20/2016