In a way, Donald Trump is the gift that keeps on giving. On March 30, Trump tweeted a rather elaborate video about supporting women in order to make America great again. It wouldn't have been remarkable, but anyone aware of Trump's history and past statements about women knows how rich this supposedly sincere tweet is. That's why the internet responded to Trump's tweet on women in the best way.
Trump's tweeted video shows him saying, "From the untamed frontiers of the Western plains to the skyscrapers of Manhattan, American women in every generation have shown extraordinary grit, courage, and devotion."
Trump is not lying here. It's true that American women have exhibited real commitment to empowering themselves and fighting the challenges they face. One of the many challenges American women have consistently faced is sexual harassment and outdated attitudes about gender -- specifically about how some men believe that women are worthy of respect and consideration only if they are conventionally attractive. You know, like the time Trump rated women on a 10-point scale, as BuzzFeed noted of statements he gave on The Howard Stern Show. At one point, Trump said, "A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10."
It's almost impossible to delete your digital footprint from the internet, including proof of your statements. Subsequently, the internet decided to give Trump a friendly reminder of his own words.
One user decided to remind him of his own words with photos of women holding Trump quotes, which first appeared in Elite Daily. One of the photos shows what Trump told Stern in 2005 about parental roles. Another photo shows Trump's tweet about sexual assault from 2013 which implies that sexual violence is inevitable when you put men and women together in the same place.
Of course, who can forget this quote from Trump that rapidly gained justified notoriety? In a video obtained by the Washington Post, Trump is heard saying incredibly lewd things about women. One of the quotes includes Trump claiming, "I did try and fuck her. She was married."
Internet users were quick to remind Trump of that. Although Trump issued a short video statement apologizing for what he had said, he added that the Washington Post's report was a "distraction from the issues we are facing today." Apparently, sexual harassment — which one out of three women have experienced at work, according to a Cosmopolitan survey — is not an issue worth public attention.
Another user shared a video with aggregated quotes on women from Trump. For someone so eager to help women reach their best potential, Trump is heard to be less than enthusiastic about a working woman's pregnancy. In fact, in a statement to NBC's Dateline, Trump said pregnancy is "certainly an inconvenience for a business." So much for that full potential.
Remember Trump's derogatory remarks about then-candidate Carly Fiorina? Rolling Stone published his words about her, including "Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?"
Then there's this:
The list unfortunately goes on. There's a reason people chose to remind Trump of his own statements about women: He directly contradicts himself when he says he respects them. If Trump's version of respect entails frequently relegating women to their looks, it's a peculiar brand of respect indeed.
The irony is unending, especially considering the fact that Trump declared April "Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention" month. But there is some good news in all of this. As long as there is the internet, Trump can trust Twitter users to remind him of his actual statements about the people and causes he claims to care for.
