Twitter Is Educating Donald Trump About Treason After His Speech & It's Hilarious
It's no secret that President Donald Trump enjoys frivolously attacking individuals, even if his attacks are completely outlandish and unwarranted. So it comes as no surprise when you hear or read a headline saying that Trump has tweeted yet again, and that it makes no sense or is garbage. And today he's done it again. Following his first ever State of the Union address on Jan. 30, Trump criticized the Democrats who chose not to applaud during parts of his speech. In fact, he called it "treasonous" — and the Twitterverse doesn't seem to think that our president knows what the definition of the word is. The tweets about treason following Trump's speech in Ohio on Feb. 5 are seriously roasting him, and for good reason.
Trump delivered his first State of the Union address on Jan. 30, and his speech got mixed reviews from both sides of the aisle. Obviously, Republicans stood up and clapped during the speech more frequently than Democrats did. This is not surprising at all, seeing as when there's a Democrat or Republican sitting in the Oval Office, their party very visibly shows their support during a State of the Union address. The other side of the room doesn't exactly follow suit.
Clearly Trump hasn't watched many addresses of presidents past. Because he decided to criticize Democrats for choosing not to applaud during parts of his speech and called the act "treasonous." In a campaign-style speech (of course) that he gave in Cincinnati on Feb. 5, Trump said, “Can we call that treason? Why not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”
Trump alleged that because Democrats didn't choose to stand up and clap during his speech when he touted record-low unemployment rates (specifically within minority communities) and economic surges, that they were committing an act of treason. And this statement honestly could not be more untrue. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines treason as,
the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family.
The dictionary also defines treason in simpler terms as a betrayal of trust. Clearly that is not what the Democrats did or sought to do when they chose to not stand during parts of Trump's speech.
And Twitter users decided to call Trump out on this, because apparently he doesn't seem to know what the definition of "treason" is.
Trump also got hit back by Democratic senator from Illinois, Tammy Duckworth. And may I just say — Yes Tammy, YES.
Even Dictionary.com's social media manager got in on the action. And may I say, this tweet is truly hilarious.
You can watch Trump make his full criticism of the Democrats during the speech below.
Since the speech and backlash from social media, searches on Merriam-Webster for the word "treason" have sky rocketed.
That's a lot of people fact-checking Trump.
If I'm being frank, the tradition of one half of Congress standing up and vigorously cheering for their party's president while the other stays stone faced does seem childish. But can you blame Democrats for following the tradition, given that our current president doesn't exactly always behave like the adult in the room?
Trump's attacks seem to grow more juvenile by the day. Considering that members of Trump's election campaign and White House staff are actually being questioned about possible collusion with Russia to swing a presidential election, "treason" is not a word that Trump should be throwing around. But as we've come to know, when there's no teleprompter in front of Trump, all bets are off.
