For much of the year, Donald Trump and his team have gone after Joe Biden with ironic lines of attack. Over the summer, for example, the president was heavily invested in the idea that Americans would see social unrest in the event of a Democratic victory, against a backdrop of social unrest in many areas on Trump’s watch.
A month later, Trump insisted that Biden’s agenda would lead the coronavirus to “infiltrate” U.S. communities nationwide, which again seemed odd, since that described what’s already happened.
But just this week, we’re starting to see Team Trump embrace irony in amazing new ways. For example, this was the line White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows peddled on Fox Business this morning:
“It’s important for us to understand that while this president, Donald Trump, was creating jobs in America, the only thing that Joe Biden was doing was creating wealth for him and his family.”
Soon after, Hogan Gidley, the national press secretary for the president’s re-election campaign, pushed a very similar line:
“I think the American people absolutely care about their politicians using taxpayer-funded jobs to try and benefit their family.”
Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee yesterday released a new anti-Biden research document. The headline, which was entirely serious, read: “The Real Joe: A Business Built On The Family Name.”
With 13 days remaining before Election Day, the GOP’s latest push seems to be that voters shouldn’t support Joe Biden, because he’s actually Donald Trump. Those looking for people who built a business on their family name should look at the president’s personal history of doing exactly that. Those concerned about politicians using taxpayer-funded jobs to benefit their family should look at the tens of millions of dollars Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner made last year, while holding taxpayer-funded jobs in the White House. And those who are outraged by people who are principally concerned about creating wealth for themselves and their family should probably keep an eye on the Republican incumbent, who’s spent a little too much of his presidency creating profits for himself and his family business.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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