Trump’s Master Class in Trolling

When it comes to trolling, President Trump takes the trophy. He has made it into an art form, and while much of the MAGA crowd enjoys it, his trolling drives the Left crazy.

He’s getting a great deal of criticism for doing it, but there are those folks who enjoy his mastery at it:

The goal for online behavior and mainstream media engagement remains the same: titillate Trump supporters while angering the left. In a word, trolling. So far, it’s working, whether it’s Trump’s infomercial for Musk’s electric vehicles, DHS chief Kristi Noem’s cosplay theatrics [with weapons] or FBI Director Kash Patel posting a perp walk photo of a judge he had arrested.

Trump has been especially criticized by Michael Edison Hayden, an author and expert on far-right extremism. He may be an expert on far-right extremism, but his comments did nothing to demonstrate his legitimacy:

According to Hayden, the White House has ‘bet big on MAGA as a completely separate cultural bubble’ in hopes that it can completely replace the legacy media altogether. ‘It's a bold play and we will find out whether or not it was completely hubristic in time,’ he added. ‘But that's why they feel like they can mock immigrants so sadistically and openly try to humiliate the press. They think MAGA will supplant the non-MAGA world and this is how they try to assert dominance.’

These comments show how out of touch Hayden is with what the president has done and said, and how he likely misrepresents Trump’s plans for MAGA. He also mischaracterizes Trump's treatment of immigrants (mocking?), although I suspect Trump does get some satisfaction from humiliating the press, since it is clearly an arm of the Left.

Trump brushed off the “No Kings” demonstrations:

When asked if the president had a comment on the demonstrations, Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, gave a brief response in an email. ‘Who cares?’ she said.

He also entertained us (and trolled the Left) with cartoons of him wearing a crown.

Even in his first term, Donald Trump defied predictability. He called out anyone whom he believed was misrepresenting an incident, was lying to the public, or who assumed his intentions were illegitimate and labelled him with deplorable terms. He also had to fight back against outrageous prosecutions in three different states, where prosecutors and judges were not interested in the truth but instead more interested in destroying Trump.

At least three other reasons might be identified regarding Trump’s goals in trolling the Left and the media. The first is that he frankly enjoys “taking people down a peg” who think they are superior to him and to his followers. The Left shows their elitist medals every time they try to harass him; his trolling is almost always a response to something the Democrats have said or done. The second reason is that the president has a sense of humor, and the pearl-clutching and protests from the Left to counter the things he does are just plain silly; they show a lack of maturity and perspective. Their whole premise that Trump wants to be a king and his trolling response was classic Trump.

But, finally, I think that Trump might be avenging his treatment by the Left: against the mainstream press that lies about him, misrepresents his intentions, discriminates against him, and uses the law to try to destroy him. No one on the Left seems to have a sense of humor, so each one takes Trump’s actions personally. And they certainly have not earned respect from Trump’s followers.

Unless the media and the Left (but I repeat myself) change their ways, the trolling will likely continue.

We might as well enjoy the show.

[originally published in American Thinker]