Every day, there can be lessons learned from Twitter, either intentionally or accidentally, and shamed former NBA athlete Rex Chapman learned an unfortunate lesson on Wednesday after tweets he posted about Donald Trump came back to hurt him in a rather unpleasant manner.
There have been plenty of journalists or Democrats who have politicized the aftermath of Hurricane Ian and the way Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is handling the incident. It's unfortunate that their play of politics during the midst of a natural catastrophe was not restricted to Ron DeSantis.
In a tweet that was posted late on Wednesday evening, shortly after Ian hit land in the southwest of Florida as a Category 4 hurricane that wreaked havoc on the coast, Chapman—who is also known to post racist and inflammatory tweets—got on Twitter to deliberately mislead his 1.2 million followers to get smiles, laughs, and retweets.
Chapman responded to a tweet that criticized Trump for allegedly fundraising during a hurricane (It isn’t clear when the video was made).
“There’s a category 4 hurricane slamming Florida right now (where he is) and the former president is personally asking for money. People are losing everything. But forget that for a second. Imagine Obama, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, or either Bush doing this. What a disgrace,” he wrote when he shared the video.
If it is true that Trump did indeed issue an appeal to raise money during the storm, and taking into consideration that this is a distasteful act and insensitive given the context, what would influencers on social media such as Rex Chapman think when they learn that the present Oval Office occupant, the person who is in charge, is also raising money this evening as the Florida coast is hit. He was at the extravagant black tie Democratic Governors Association reception in D.C.?
A few people brought this issue up to Chapman in a very gentle manner.
He did not respond well, initially reacting to the tweet by saying, “You get what ‘personal’ means, no??” and then moments later, “Biden just pleaded federal money to Florida champ.”
It is likely that he was referring to “pledged,” which is not relevant since the amount Biden is believed to have been “pledging” is federal tax dollars, not the money that came from a fundraiser. Maybe that will be corrected later when we discover that all the money collected at the Democrat event will go to hurricane victims, but that’s not likely.
Furthermore, is Trump “personally” fundraising during the hurricane going to be more “disgraceful” than Joe Biden trying to increase his campaign funds as an American state is being battered by a wild storm? It's true that Trump was the previous president, and according to Democrats, the further from he gets away from politics the better, unless it is about hurricanes or something else?
It does not make any sense when you consider that these people would go wild about Trump if he were still president and attending a fundraiser. Later on, after the initial tweets, there were a plethora of “It’s okay when Democrats do it”-type tweets, which means that it appears that these people believe that it's fine as long as their side is doing it.
Here are a few words of advice to Chapman and his loyal followers: Cry more. Then, think before tweeting.
According to Curtis Houck, Republican presidents have been extremely criticized by Democrats and the press if they weren’t secluded at the White House on standby or in the air with storm trackers during storms. However, Joe Biden can party with the Democratic elite while raising funds just weeks away of a crucial election, and suddenly it's all right.
If Democrats didn’t have double standards, they would not have any standards at all. They proved it during this storm and will continue to prove it well into the future. As the old Rahm Emanuel saying goes, they “never let a crisis go to waste.”
