President Donald Trump isn’t much of a go-getter, except on issues his cadre of staffers take on as racist pet projects. So it would follow that, even though he’s the head of the Republican Party, he’s dedicated himself to doing the absolute least by doling out nearly the same, word-for-word endorsements of a wide array of GOP candidates.
Trump tweets the same, boring, boilerplate endorsement A LOT. He regularly tweets about his preferred candidate being “strong on the Border” (a word that, for the record, should not be capitalized), a reference to the candidate being either “strong” or otherwise “tough” on “crime,” as well as shoutouts to “our Vets and the 2nd Amendment.” I’ve been left to wonder: How many more times will we get this almost-exactly-the-same song and dance?
So I did a cursory crunching of the numbers (there’s probably overlap between candidates here, I’m not gonna go nuts):
This year, Trump has tweeted endorsements about “tough on crime” Republicans at least 15 times.
He’s tweeted about Republicans who love “our Military” and “our Vets” (must love both!!) at least eight times.
He’s tweeted about candidates will protect “our Second Amendment” at least seven times.
Trump has tweeted about candidates being “strong” on “borders” more than 20 times in 2018 alone. (It probably wouldn’t shock you that he’s tweeted about “borders” some 150 times in total.)
An endorsement on Monday evening—for Rep. Erik Paulsen—gets points for being at least something of an actual diversion from his usual spiel. Unfortunately, it seems Paulsen only earned Trump’s “Strong,” rather than his “full,” endorsement a designation he’s offered on Twitter to 10 Republicans so far this year.
And, because only in death will I know peace, Trump fired off his platonic ideal of an endorsement in the moments before this story was set to run. “Vote for John,” the voters cry:
So, based on these projections, how many more times will we get this same tweet formulation? (Again, note: There will be no math involved here.) With Election Day 2018—folks, it’s gonna be a big one—exactly two weeks away, let’s hope its days are numbered—at least until Nov. 7, when the 2020 race unofficially kicks off.