Following up on streiff’s excellent point that Donald Trump got trolled and schooled by a master over Trump’s uncritical love of Mussolini quotes, I’m going to take apart this ilduce2016 account, piece by piece. If you don’t have the time, let me save it for you: this account was designed to encourage Donald Trump to drop his pants, insert his genitals into the sausage machine, and hit the big red button. And Donald Trump obliged him.

Background: So, we had this happen.

(Image from streiff’s post, which, again, will give you all the background you need) This is not the first time that Donald Trump has stupidly retweeted something written by an unsavory type, of course.  Usually it’s white nationalists; and this time it’s… well, “@ilduce2016” is kind of a giveaway, isn’t it?  Il Duce. Benito Mussolini. It’s a direct quote.

OK. Maybe Donald Trump is a pig-ignorant doofus who doesn’t know anything about the Second World War.. Actually, yeah, I believe that.  But wait, there’s more!  Let’s go take a look at @ilduce2016‘s Twitter feed.

The first thing that jumps out at you is the fact that the guy’s image is a picture of Benito Mussolini with Donald Trump’s hairpiece Photoshopped on top.  This should be a tell, right there. That should be an instant indication that you are dealing with somebody running a long con*. Don’t believe me?  Well, look at the feed.

If you keep looking at it, you’ll notice pretty quickly that this Twitter account pretty much puts up one post an hour (I assumed at first that it was auto-generating Tweets, but there was a gap consistent with somebody going to sleep).  And that’s all that the account is doing; at the time of writing the person running it isn’t retweeting other people, or even responding to the fact that Oh, wow, Donald Trump retweeted my tweet!  Which is not consistent with normal tweeting behavior; but it is consistent with somebody who is regularly throwing out chum in the water, secure in the knowledge that eventually the fish would investigate.  And hoo, boy, one did.

And then there’s this. I love this part. This is what makes this art. From the dude’s following page:

Fascists? Check.  Donald J. Trump? Check.  Trump’s inner circle?  Check.  One of Trump’s mainstream fan clubs? Check.  …And Ben Carson’s Bus.  Yes, that’s a real Twitter account run by the Carson campaign. No, it doesn’t have the slightest thing to do with the rest of this.  That’s the point.  That’s what the ilduce2016 guy points to when people ask him if he’s a Fascist. Nope! This was a scam.  I made it as clear as I could without just giving away the joke, and Donald Trump totally fell for it.

Which is true.  Donald Trump did.  Because’s he predictable like that. Predictable, easily manipulated, and incapable of ever admitting when he’s messed up.  As we saw this morning.

Moe Lane

PS: Five minutes after writing this, I saw that Gawker fessed up. And by ‘fessed up’ I mean ‘BRAGGED.’ (I’d link directly, but I don’t link to Gawker directly) Credit where it is due, they called their shot perfectly. But to be fair: really, it’s not that hard when it’s Trump.

*There is, mind you, a small but finite possibility that this account was made by a person who sincerely believes that Benito Mussolini was a good guy and that Donald Trump is his heir.  …Given the circumstances, this does not actually help prove one’s case that Donald Trump is not an idiot.