Laugh or cry? Well, it’s more of a double-edged sword thing the Trump campaign did to The Washington Post, but the memories of this are quite fantastic. The campaign literally bought tons of ad space on the front page of the publication, so when Kamala Harris formally accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president, it was all Trump ads on the homepage. It caused the Left to have a meltdown (via Fast Company):
No, @washingtonpost, no, no NO. How dare you? Were these pieces of silver worth the price of your soul? pic.twitter.com/tTCYYEj1Dl
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) August 20, 2020
30 minutes later and now I bet the advertiser is unhappy with the ad placement. pic.twitter.com/7EOUAZJiFf
— Joe Light (@joelight) August 20, 2020
This was the "homepage takeover" mentioned a few days ago https://t.co/9JqsHzSWbc
— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) August 20, 2020
The Washington Post's website is covered in Trump ads this morning, including a pre-roll video. It is shameful for the paper to take money from a president whose denunciations endanger journalists and may have contributed to the murder of its columnist, Jamal Khashoggi. pic.twitter.com/AY3ICdFVNf
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) August 20, 2020
Visit the paper’s website currently to witness a configuration of words and images that all cancel each other out. At the top, the paper’s famously goth-tinged slogan for the Trump era, “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” flanked by tiny ads for Trump’s reelection. Just beneath the masthead, a larger version of the ad, stretching across the entire page, reads, ” THE RADICAL LEFTIST TAKEOVER OF JOE BIDEN IS COMPLETE,” in all caps like one of the president’s inflammatory tweets. And finally, beneath this invective, the headline, “Harris accepts historic VP nomination: ‘We will speak truths’“.
The flat image in the tweet above doesn’t convey this ad buy’s full effect. Scrolling through WaPo’s website, the ad at the top expands to fill the whole screen, demanding readers either x out or click through. It’s a total troll move on behalf of the president, debasing the newspaper that he frequently disparages as ‘the Amazon Washington Post.’ What could be a greater slight, at the publication’s expense, than forcing its owners to acknowledge they’re not in a position to turn down Trump’s money?
Yet, as some noted, the lefty outrage over this is a bit overblown since the money spent on the ads will certainly be used to fund hit pieces against President Trump. Still, it provides an ‘own the libs’ moment that should be cherished. Erick Erickson got a nice chuckle out of it. It’s just one of the many ways the Trump team has gotten under the skin of liberals, which isn’t that hard to do given the Left has succumbed to full-blown derangement syndrome.
Here’s a left-wing thing I don’t really understand: complaining about Donald Trump paying for ads in the Washington Post, a purchase that will fund journalism that will undoubtedly be damaging to Donald Trump.
— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) August 20, 2020