Hiding from the light

After we reported yesterday that Donald Trump Jr., son of the Republican nominee for president, was following at least two overt antisemites on Twitter, we heard from a flock of Trump fans trying to claim it was because Trump Jr. wanted to “troll” them, or because he wanted to “keep track” of them. Others tried to argue the Twitter users we identified as racists and antisemites weren’t anything of the sort, just fun guys having fun with other people who like to have fun. (We have some examples of the “funny” tweets these people have been posting here.)

Here’s our screenshot of Trump Jr.’s following list as it appeared yesterday afternoon, showing the two “alt-right” antisemites under discussion, @Ricky_Vaughn99 and @Bidenshairplugs:

But now there’s been a development that destroys any attempts at deflection (reminiscent of the Trump campaign’s attempt to explain away his antisemitic image as simply a “sheriff’s star”): today when we checked Trump Jr.”s following list again, we discovered that sometime after we published our article exposing the antisemites he was following, he… unfollowed them. That’s right, they’re no longer on the list.

And he did this quietly, obviously hoping to cover it up before the media in general picked up on it. After all, at this point the last thing the Trump campaign needs is another antisemitism scandal. I’d love to have heard the discussions that went on between Trump Jr. and other advisers over this; you know there were words.

Needless to say, if Trump Jr. were really following these vile cavemen to “troll” or “keep track” of them, he wouldn’t have silently dropped them from his list. This is the act of a person who was caught doing something he couldn’t defend, and hurriedly tried to hide it before it was noticed more widely.

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