A Presidents’ Day joke from the official Republican Party Twitter feed has been ridiculed for disrespecting Joe Biden while hailing Richard Nixon as among the “great US presidents”.
Borrowing the meme of the “not you” grid, the party singled out eight past Republican presidents for praise: Abraham Lincoln, Calvin Coolidge, Dwight Eisenhower, Nixon, Ronald Reagan, both George Bushes, and of course, Donald Trump.
Mr Biden, meanwhile, is shown wearing a mask designed to stop the spread of Covid-19, which Donald Trump famously contracted late in his presidency.
The reaction to the bizarrely pro-Nixon message was swift and caustic, with anti-Republican commentators and tweeters seizing on the implications immediately – and pointing out that unlike Nixon, who resigned from office before being formally ejected by Congress, Donald Trump was in fact impeached twice for alleged crimes committed during his tenure.
Others noted that the party included Nixon at the expense of other Republicans, including Gerald Ford (who pardoned him), Teddy Roosevelt, or Ulysses S Grant.
Others still pointed out that the eight men selected for elevation in contrast to Biden would hardly have agreed with the selection as a whole.
Others on the right who reject Trumpism as a philosophy issued more general objections. As former Tea Party Republican turned Trump opponent Joe Walsh tweeted: “Every day, the @GOP does or says something to make me feel really good about my decision two years ago to leave the Republican Party. Every single day.”
Conservative commentator Bill Kristol, meanwhile, offered this view: “This is mostly juvenile and vulgar. But we are on the verge of war in Europe. It would be good if elected Republicans, GOP candidates, those who’ve served in Republican administrations--made it clear @GOP does not speak for what remains of a decent and patriotic Republican Party.”
