President Donald Trump showed his bruise-covered hand when forced immigration officers to equip themselves with electric-shock gloves, a columnist argued Friday.
Salon's Amanda Marcotte slapped back at the president's disturbing decision to arm Immigration Control and Enforcement officers with the "Orwellian" weapon that cops love because it leaves no scar.
"Since Trump can’t imprison people at the scale he wants, he has to settle for harassing them instead," she wrote. "While the situation is dire, it’s also a sign that Trump is weak."
Marcotte's argument for Trump's weakness focuses on various shows of strength in court that the columnist proceeded to deflate.
Trump's repeated failures in court against an Olympian canoeist, a man who took a picture of seashells, and the state attorney general who successfully sued him for fraud have spurred him to lash out, argued Marcotte.
"Trump’s efforts to use the Justice Department to exact revenge have only backfired," wrote Marcotte. "The new ICE gloves are part of this systemic destruction, representing the pathetic means the Trump administration will use, all so they can inflict maximum punishment before the judicial system lets their targets go."
Ultimately, the gloves are meant to serve as a mere distraction — one predicted to cause much physical pain to the citizens he's sworn to serve, Marcotte concluded.
"That’s not the behavior of the all-powerful leader he was trying to be a year ago," she wrote. "They are the actions of a spoiled brat trying, and failing, to cover up the stench of losing."