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Trump’s New Ad Is Amazing

The Trump campaign just ran the most ironic ad in the history of American politics.
July 22, 2020
Trump’s New Ad Is Amazing

A couple weeks ago the Trump campaign rolled out an ad proclaiming that the president would protect a statue of Jesus from the woke left. The only problem was that the statue pictured in the ad was the famous Christ the Redeemer from Rio de Janeiro.

That screw-up was under the Parscale regime.

Now Bill Stepien has asked America to hold his beer.

The latest ad from the Trump campaign running on The Facebook is an attempt to get the olds worked up about their LAW & ORDER PRESIDENT. Here’s the ad, courtesy of the sharps at Business Insider:

Pretty standard stuff. With one exception. That picture on the right where the evil hippie scum from Stumptown are whaling on the gallant law enforcement officer who’s trying to protect God and country?

It’s from 2014.

That’s not the bad part.

It’s from Ukraine.

But that’s not the bad part, either.

The “evil hippie scum” are actually pro-democracy protesters. And the policeman getting beat up is a member of the riot police who had been brought in to try to protect the authoritarian president, Viktor Yanukovych, who was attempting to turn Ukraine into a one-party state by extralegal means.

Still not at the bad part.

One of the extralegal means Yanukovych employed was a specialized federal internal police force, the Berkut, which answered directly to him and was used to assault his political opponents and tamper with elections. Another of the extralegal means he used was jailing former Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko after beating her in the 2010 election. He actually “locked her up.”

Now we’re at the bad part.

Wait for it . . .

The picture Trump is using in his ad was taken on February 14, 2014.

On February 22, 2014, an overwhelming majority of Ukraine’s parliament—328 of 447 members—voted to remove Yanukovych from office.

And on February 25, 2014 Yanukovych turned up in . . . Moscow. Where he enjoyed asylum. Because he was Vladimir Putin’s puppet.

I’m sorry. I lied. Because we’re not actually at the bad part yet.

Buckle up your chin straps because the real bad part is that after Yanukovych fled to Russia, the Ukrainian people charged him with treason. Not in the Fox News sense. They didn’t go on TV and say “Oh yeah, that guy. He was the worst. Total traitor. Human scum.”

No, they filed charges and tried him in a court of law (in absentia) and convicted him. Not of a little light treason, but of “high treason.”

Oh, and also—just as a cherry on top—back in 2004, before Yanukovych had ascended to the throne and tried to destroy his country’s democracy, he hired this really interesting American political operative to help his party.

The guy’s name was Paul Manafort. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?

Irony = ded.

Jonathan V. Last

Jonathan V. Last is editor of The Bulwark.