Celebrities and politicians — particularly C-listers whom no one really cares about otherwise, to whom the amount of attention paid is incommensurate with the amount they feel entitled to receive — are all-in on Smollett-style hoaxes.
Get yourself attacked unfairly by a boogeyman bully, do a few tear-filled interviews, garner much-needed attention and sympathy for yourself, and there you have the Smollett recipe for success.
Nikki Haley, highly paid and touted by the forever-war industry as its preferred candidate in the GOP primary, has apparently been taking notes. And she’s enlisted the corporate state media to promulgate her victim-fest.
A few days ago, Trump derided Haley as a “birdbrain” amid a typically rambling Trumpian post to his Truth Social account:
I will never run against our great President,’ she said, ‘he has done an outstanding job.’ To which I responded, ‘How nice of you to say, Nikki,’ knowing full well that her words mean nothing. She even came to Mar-a-Lago with her family, ‘bearing gifts.’ Anyway, Birdbrain doesn’t have the TALENT or TEMPERAMENT to do the job. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
And now, to hear Haley tell it, Trump’s ramped the trolling up. (You know you’re a bona fide conservative when you’ve got USA Today running PR for your campaign.)
Via USA Today (emphasis added):
Trump took to the social media platform Truth Social and launched into a tirade against his opponents, calling Haley a “birdbrain” and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie “sloppy” and “a Trump deranged lunatic.”
Trump continued to bash Haley in a follow-up post and said: “MAGA, or I, will never go for Birdbrain Nikki Haley. No loyalty, plenty of lies!” Haley responded with a screenshot of the insult and posted it on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, and said: “Love this. It means we are in 2nd and moving up fast. Bring it….
On Sunday morning, after the town hall event, Haley took to X again, posting a picture of a “message” she received from the Trump campaign. Outside her hotel room, Haley said she found a birdcage and a small bag of bird food.
After a day of campaigning, this is the message waiting for me outside my hotel room…#PrettyPatheticTryAgain#YouJustMadeMyCaseForMe pic.twitter.com/htbSumo58r
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) October 1, 2023
Let’s concede for the sake of argument that Trump actually went out of his way to have his campaign send Haley a birdcage and a bag of bird food with a cardboard sign attached that says “From: Trump campaign” — a dubious prospect there is no confirmation of currently.
Who cares?
What’s the implication of this?
That a multimillionaire politician with personal security is somehow a victim of bullying or the recipient of a credible threat?
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