Donald Trump has again tweeted a video of a magazine cover mocked-up to show him being elected president again and again into the distant future – even as he languishes behind Joe Biden in opinion polls.
Set to Edvard Grieg’s "In the Hall of the Mountain King", the video adapts one made by Time magazine to accompany the 2018 cover story “How trumpism outlasts Trump”.
Showing a long series of pro-Trump yard signs from 2020 to 2024 and every four-year increment beyond, it finally zooms in on a clip of the president superimposed above a sign that ticks up through the 21st century into the tens of thousands, then displaying “EEEEEE” before the words “Trump 4eva”.
It is unclear exactly what point the president is making with the surreal video – if any – since he shared it without comment. Some pointed out that the music is based on a myth about Norwegian trolls, though they also voiced scepticism that Mr Trump would know this. (In another version by the same composer, the trolls sing about tearing a captured Christian protagonist limb from limb and cooking his remains.)
He has tweeted it before, once in June 2019 and again in February this year just after the US Senate acquitted him of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Not everybody commenting on the video focused on its apparent facetiousness, instead taking issue with the allusion to eternal leadership. The former Office of Government Ethics chief Walter Shaub wrote, “Yes because dictatorship is hilarious. What a card. You should do standup on the Ed Sullivan show.”
Some opponents of Mr Trump’s are worried that if he loses the election, he might claim the vote was illegitimate and refuse to leave the White House – though Mr Biden has said he is confident that the army would escort the president out were he to do that.
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