Donald J Trump Jr, the son of Republican nominee Donald J Trump, has been criticised for comparing Syrian refugees to Skittles, in unfavourable terms.
It is the first time Trump Jr – a surrogate for his father’s presidential campaign – has specifically compared people seeking asylum from a war-torn country to candy.
But it is far from the first time Trump Jr has upset large swathes of the population with his opinions, actions and Twitter account.
This image says it all. Let's end the politically correct agenda that doesn't put America first. #trump2016 pic.twitter.com/9fHwog7ssN
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 19, 2016
Trump Jr was back at it again on Tuesday, just 12 hours after his Skittles comparison, when he tweeted a link to a Breitbart article on “Europe’s rape epidemic”.
The piece, written by Anne-Marie Winters and posted on alt-right website Breitbart, alleges – without sourcing – that “tens of thousands” of British women have been tortured and raped by gangs “comprised almost exclusively of Muslims”, and that many people seeking asylum in Germany are “rapists”.
“They’re allowing known rapists to mingle freely with European women,” Waters said of European governments’ decisions to grant asylum to people from the middle east.
Last year Trump Sr alleged that Mexico was sending rapists to the US.
Social media has been a problem for Trump Jr for some time. In 2011 he used Twitter to describe who he thought was Representative Maxine Waters, who has served in Congress for 25 years, as looking “like a stripper”; and in 2012 he joked about Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State football coach who is currently serving a 60-year prison sentence for child abuse.
BuzzFeed catalogued 49 of Trump Jr’s tweets earlier this year. The collection portrays him as surprisingly immature for a man approaching 40. Trump Jr repeatedly refers to people tweeting at him as “morons”, while he also described himself as “a boob guy” and called a follower a “pussy”.
This year Trump Sr referred to Ted Cruz as a pussy during the Republican presidential primary.
Trump Jr’s behaviour would not matter if he was just a rogue son tweeting from a basement. But he is a surrogate for his father’s presidential campaign who even spoke at the Republican national convention in August, and was also involved in the vice-presidential selection process. Trump Jr even met with the National Rifle Association ahead of them endorsing his father, according to ABC News.
The Trump campaign did not respond to questions about Trump Jr’s continued role in his father’s campaign. But given his long history of causing upset, it seems unlikely that he will be dropped now.
As long ago as 2012, Trump Jr was getting himself in hot water. That year, photos emerged of Trump Jr and his brother, Eric Trump, on a hunting trip to Zimbabwe.
One of the images showed Trump Jr smiling next to his brother Eric, who is holding up a dead leopard. Another showed Trump Jr, wearing a backwards baseball cap and holding a rifle, sitting next to a dead buffalo.
There’s a photo of Trump Jr holding a severed elephant’s tail in one hand and a knife in the other, with a dead elephant in the background and a photo of him and Eric Trump standing next to a dead crocodile hanging from a tree.
The pictures resurfaced during Trump’s presidential campaign, angering animal rights activists further and even prompting Madonna to wade in.
More recently, Trump Jr drew ire for agreeing to an interview with prominent white nationalist James Edwards. Edwards, host of rightwing radio show the Political Cesspool, is listed in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “extremist files”. The SPLC says the Political Cesspool “has featured a wide roster of white supremacists, anti-Semites and other extremists”.
A week earlier Trump Sr had refused to disavow an endorsement by former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke.
There are other offensive things Trump Jr has done, too – like invoking the holocaust when discussing the media’s treatment of Hillary Clinton – but if Trump Jr’s behavior reveals anything, it is the similarity between him and his father.
Both Trump Jr and Trump Sr have a knack for upsetting people over Twitter. Both have, at times, struggled to distance themselves from white supremacists. Both have displayed misguided views on alleged foreign rapists.
Trump Jr was even born into extravagant wealth before being offered a well-paid position in his father’s company – just like Trump Sr.
Oh, and there is one more similarity: Trump Jr has suggested he might run for mayor of New York City in 2017.
