Throwback Thursday: Goodbye Donald Edition
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Though you might not know it from certain political WeChat groups in which partisans cling desperately to an alternate reality, the US election is pretty much wrapped up at this point. So, while the race was too close to call last Thursday, this week we’re ready to say “Bye Don,” with a look back at the Beijinger’s Trump coverage over the past four years before we finally never have to think about orange face and tiny white hands again.
The Trumplings
It’s often said that the media’s excessive coverage of Trump may have launched him into victory, and we too may have been guilty of that. In February of 2016, as the MAGA campaign was making inroads, we drew attention to a still extant website, Trumplings.com, which, without explanation, fitted animated trump faces onto Chinese dumplings and allowed visitors to toss them around. Need seasoning with that? Feel free to top the dumplings liberally (or conservatively) with Sarah Palin heads, for some reason.
It's an all you can eat Trumpling buffet!
It’s clear from the blog that managing editor Margaux Schreurs was not a fan of the candidate, but time has proven that no publicity is bad publicity for the Donald. Perhaps history would tell a different story had Hillary Clinton’s head been photoshopped onto an interactive jianbing stall.
Perhaps it was COVID, or maybe general fear of reliving 2016 disappointment, but only a couple of bars held election result watch parties this year, in contrast to the previous election when it seemed like every pub from Sanlitun to Xicheng was packed with foreigners, eyes glued to TVs as the map turned red.
Unsurprisingly, people who regularly visited a place named The Bookworm were not fans of candidate Donald Trump
This year, the Local held another watch party, one of only two bars in the city to do so. The crowd again leaned blue, and, like anywhere in the world, watched the news come in with cautious optimism, and even a foreboding uncertainty for most of the party, which only gave way to sighs of relief toward late afternoon. Still, visitors left the pub without full closure, which only came in the following days.
Did you know that Donald’s favorite daughter’s daughter can speak Chinese?
Was TikTok nearly brought down by a four-year-old?
Of course, as we now know, Donald doesn’t like to be upstaged, and we reckon this just might have been the first seeds of his ambitions to ban the app.
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First, we begin with Trump's birth chart, which Master Tsai called "very special," adding, "His Five Elements are extremely out of balance. His chart has too much Fire and Earth, with almost no Water or Metal." Whether it was a ramp with a moderate incline or a pesky glass of water, Trump proved himself to be fairly off balance over the last four years. To be fair, though, at 74 years old, a little trouble walking down a ramp isn't entirely surprising.
By 2020, the stars will have begun to rebel against Donald Trump
And with that, we rest Master Tsai's case.
There can be only one Great Wall
We can’t confirm, but we’d also like to imagine that Abbey also performed a spot-on impression of the president trying to pronounce “China.”
Merry Impeachment
Besides covering a rather unremarkable visit from the president in which he did little more of note besides eat chocolate cake, we have largely avoided discussing him since. The one exception was last year when impeachment proceedings were underway, which just happened to coincide with Christmas time. As such, we offered handy gift ideas to celebrate, from Trump toilet paper to cat toys.
Though these are great, impeachment itself was the best gift anyone could've asked for
And that’s it! Here’s hoping that this is our last blog about Donald Trump.
READ: Throwback Thursday: The Greatest Halloween Party Ever to Hit the Beijing Subway
Images: Margaux Schreurs, Kyle Mullin, Medium, Li Shipin, Taobao
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