Small cutouts of former U.S. President Donald Trump are sold by a vendor outside a campaign rally last week in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
A college professor of mine once compared the experience of reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” to watching a high-wire artist perform a steadily escalating series of stunts: When he starts off with a perfect somersault, the spectator rises from his seat with amazed wonder and shouts, “My god!” But when the acrobat performs a triple flip a few minutes later, you might already be yawning.
Reader, beware: The previous paragraph is as high-minded and literary as this column is going to get, because its topic is former President Donald J. Trump’s social media behavior.
On Wednesday, the Republican presidential candidate reposted on his Truth Social platform an X user’s post that featured a photo of Vice President Kamala Harris and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with the message, “Funny how b__j__s impacted both their careers differently.” I’ve elided the most offensive word in that message because I know how many of the Times Union’s youngest readers enjoy my Sunday columns. I’ll leave it to their parents to fill in the blanks, so to speak, except to note that Clinton’s husband had an affair when he was president and Harris dated California legislative leader Willie Brown almost three decades ago.........