Stop Letting Him Use You For Photo Ops

Big smile. One hand out front for a nice handshake with Mister Trump. His other hand is behind your back, stabbing you. Thanks for the photo, though.

In February, a group of presidents of historically black colleges and universities posed with Trump in the Oval Office, and later said they were encouraged by his professed commitment to supporting black colleges. The Trump administration’s proposed budget would completely eliminate federal money that supports more than 50,000 HBCU students and would slash funding for Pell Grants used by HBCU students, moves that are supported by Trump’s education secretary, who is also committed to undermining funding for the public schools that educate most incoming HBCU students. Nice photo, though.

In January, a group of union leaders posed with Trump in the Oval Office, and walked out gushing about the respect he showed them. The Trump administration has already abolished workers safety and fair pay laws, advocated for national “Right to Work” legislation that would devastate unions, explicitly called for lower wages for average workers, and nominated a Labor Secretary who wants to roll back all union gains of the past eight years. Virtually all of his policies are antithetical to the interests of most workers that most unions represent or should hope to represent. Nice photo, though.

Donald Trump, a billionaire New York real estate mogul who lives in an opulent Manhattan penthouse, won more than two-thirds of rural votes, holding rallies with ecstatic rural fans and posing for countless pictures in America’s heartland. The Trump administration’s proposed economic policies would “ negatively affect the fortunes of the agricultural sector by depressing the prices received by farmers, reducing the demand for American agricultural exports, and raising production costs,” in addition to giving large tax cuts to the rich at the expense of low-income Americans. Nice photos, though.

Should we do one about handing out access to favored news outlets in exchange for ideologically cozy coverage while simultaneously attacking and vowing to undermine the very basis of the free press in America? Maybe that one is too easy.

Stop signing up to be ripped off.