Thumbs up everybody!
Trump tweeted this nightmare yesterday:
He thinks that’s what he was there for – to stand in the middle of a row of people in uniform, grinning broadly and showing us his filthy thumb.
Grinny grin grin grin.
It was just one long party.
Why do these people go along with it? Why do they allow themselves to be used as props alongside the Great Orange Rictus? Are they all fans, or are some so numb from shock that they are easily directed to smile and wave? People in the future (assuming there is a future that has people in it) looking back at these photos in context and wonder “WTF are they smiling for?”
Someone should put together a collection of these images and offer them up as an online game of “Guess the Mass Murder Presidential Photo-op.” It would be quite a challenge, as there must be a quite a lot of them by now, and they all look so much alike.
I wonder the same thing. I think we all wondered the same thing about the photos of his visit to Parkland – I blogged that too. It was exactly the same – inappropriate grins and thumbs up all over the place. [shudder]
I would imagine (hope?) there’s some sort of selection bias, as well. The folks unwilling to grin, or disposed to display a thumbs-down, are quietly moved aside. So all we’re left with is a record of the people happy to show their support/complicity. Also, without knowing the police and hospital demographics, we can’t know whether the remarkable uniformity in skin color is meaningful or not…
It’s possible that the photos are an invitation thing, so people who don’t want to join in busy themselves with the medications and record-keeping.
I had in mind that self-selection as well. If I found myself in that situation at work, I would simply opt out, rather than try to subvert or disrupt the photo ops. It’s interesting that these occur at people’s place of employment, where standards of professionalism and desire to avoid conflict mean that everything is easier to control. If I were planning to retire the next day, my choices might be different…
I worked for a certain startup once which always seemed to find excuses for me and my team to be out of the office when there were sycophantic photo opportunities with visiting dignitaries. Presumably on the grounds that we wouldn’t play along or would tell them the truth or something.
It was a bit like that Simpsons episode where Bart is told that there are free bikes in the basement when the school is being inspected or.
It was especially galling to the management that on the one occasion we got to demonstrate our software to the Prime Minister I was, for various reasons, the only person who could do it. Quite a lot of people anxiously holding their breath for quite a long time.
If make no scene, just go to the bathroom at that moment. These people are have chosen cowardly to stand with a human that deserves no respect.