If you watched any football this weekend — and if you didn’t, get out of America, commie scum! — you may have been treated to a political ad about Donald Trump. This is not really a surprise, since the bloated corpse shambling around the White House calling himself president loves nothing so much as he loves those times his TV tells him that he’s the bravest, smartest, most heroic boy in all the land. So naturally his administration is going to make a commercial that is just 30 seconds of Trump in black and white walking in slow motion down a hallway, trying to look tough while the soundtrack plays clips of him calling for the destruction of his enemies — the deep state, the fake news media, carbs, what have you.
If the ad looks familiar, that is because it was originally produced as part of Trump’s 2024 election campaign. (We didn’t remember it ourselves, because 2024 was approximately 1,427 years ago.) So imagine everyone’s surprise when the words “Paid for by the U.S. government” appeared on the screen at the end of the ad.
We have no idea why Trump and his people think this makes him look tough and not like a posturing and fragile weenus who won’t leave the house without his own personal hype woman and 17 coats of shellac in his hair, but also our brain isn’t made of the watery remains from the drip tray under a Slurpee machine.
Normally it is against the law for the US government to create obviously partisan ads supporting one political side over the other. But this is Donald Trump’s government, where trifles like “the law” and “ethics” do not apply. Also, despite his political action arms sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars, the legendarily cheap president isn’t going to use any of that money for its intended purpose because then it won’t be there for him to siphon off to his private bank accounts.
So lucky us, the American taxpayers. We get to pay what were likely premium prices to air this ad, which is clearly propaganda intended to inject Donald Trump into the upcoming midterm elections, during some of the most prime television hours in the country.
This is the second repurposed campaign ad that Trump’s people have released in the last week with the words “Paid for by the U.S. government” tacked on. The first was made a few weeks ago by the dark money group Securing American Greatness, which supports Trump’s political operations. That ad was a supercut of pictures of Trump interspersed with video of fighter-jet flyovers while a chorus of women sang a song with the lyric “love me” on repeat. It also included a voiceover of Trump lickspittle Dana White, president of Ultimate Fighting Championship, praising Trump in a way that would have embarrassed RM Renfield.
Aside from the usual lawyers and ethics experts slamming the White House, even Senator John Kennedy, the Foghorn Leghorn Republican from Louisiana, criticized the president and his team for spending taxpayer dollars on the spot:
Folks, the Hyperchicken from Futurama is right: no public official should spend money on private ads for themselves. Which is why the White House is claiming these ads are public service announcements reminding Americans to “love their country and know why it’s worth defending.”
Oh sure. And the fact that these ads are going up at the height of an election season where Republicans are expecting to get wiped out has nothing to do with it:
The announcements are very clearly not campaign ads; President Trump is not on the ballot and there is no call to action.
Trump has many times told Republicans to vote as if he is on the ballot. He said it at a campaign rally for Darline Graham, Lindsey Graham’s sister, who is running for his Senate seat, a few days ago. He said it during a North Carolina rally for Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley just over a week ago, at about the time his first ad was hitting the air.
He even said it during his keynote speech at the Republicans’ stupid midterm convention three weeks ago when he told the crowd and the other dozen people watching at home, and we quote, “I’m on the ballot.”
We’re not political messaging geniuses, but “Vote as if I’m on the ballot” sounds very much like a political call to action!
So yes, these are political ads, and the airtime is being bought with our tax dollars to glorify Dear Leader, and we may as well add it to the pile of impeachable offenses, which if laid on its side could already circle the Earth. Twice. Minimum.
The thing is that the White House knows what Trump is doing. It knows that we know what Trump is doing. We know because there has been plenty of reporting about how Trump has decided that Republicans’ best hope for the midterms is for him to run more ads about himself and the great job he thinks he’s doing. We know because Trump constantly claims that Republican candidates win when they embrace and praise him and lose when they don’t. It’s not true, but when has that ever stopped him?
Finally, we know because he’s Donald Trump and everything must be about him at any and all times. The man can’t so much as hand the World Cup trophy to the winning team without staying on the stage and clapping like a seal with a head injury.
Do you ever get an earworm of a terrible, terrible song you hate but sticks in your head for interminable hours or even days? Something like “Angel of the Morning” or anything by Train? That’s Trump. He’s the political equivalent of an earworm, one that you can’t get out of your head for a decade and a half.
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Remember, every bit of Federal dollars squandered is one fewer dollar that can be used to sustain, protect or enfranchise the minorities that the unreconstructed hate. Especially where the federal government is the only protection against unreconstructed state-based regimes of terror.
So it's perfect to blow it on their racist carnival barker godking.
Just so we're all clear we know he's illegally going to run for a third term, right? Be ready for this especially with the wide deference in the political and legal systems for the champions of the unreconstructed (including unlimited appeals as if they were Olive Garden breadsticks).
This is part of the Marcos Plan, taking as much money for himself as possible, while also creating astronomical debts so that the country will be so economically ravaged that they won't have the ability to come after him or his family if he ever steps down