OPINION:
A self-described “gay man living with HIV/AIDS” issued a strong defense on Twitter of President Donald Trump, telling the social media world that this administration has been far from harmful to his health, and actually, quite the opposite — that due to federal and state funding, he’s actually received the necessary treatment to leave him “fully cured” of one of his ailments.
Imagine that.
This is not your Democrats’ vision of Trump.
This is not your leftist messaging of the Republican Party.
Scott Ford, @ScottForTVGuy on Twitter, wrote this: “As a gay man living with HIV/AIDs, my life has not been negatively impacted by @realDonaldTrump or the current Admin. In fact, federal/state grant money made it possible in Ohio for my $75,000, 90 pills HEP C treatment. I am now fully cured. First time in 24 years.”
This is hardly insignificant.
And beneath his tweet were those of several others weighing in with support.
“It pains me when I hear my ignorant gay friends try to paint this president and administration as ’ant[i]-gay’ because nothing could be further from the truth. Trump fights for all Americans,” wrote one.
And from another: “Don’t let that dirty little secret out to too many. That goes against the liberal narrative that Trump is a homophobic racist.”
Indeed it does.
The media, fueled by leftist messaging, has been busily painting Trump as a hater of pretty much all mankind — a hater of border crossers, a hater of women, a hater of Muslims and so forth and so on.
For instance: “Trump,” one Washington Post headline blared in May, “who cast himself as pro-LGBT, is now under fire from Democrats for rolling back protections.”
Ford, in the reasoning of the left, ought to hate Trump, too.
But he doesn’t.
And for that — according to the left — he must pay.
In Ford’s own words, from a video he posted on his Twitter feed addressing the backlash he faced for daring to attend Trump’s recent Cincinnati rally: “By sharing one tweet, that as a lifelong Democrat, I will be attending my first ever Trump rally, the backlash and hate has surpassed my expectations of any decent human being … has been painful, has been a complete torture.”
He went on, describing the flip side — the thousands of “total strangers” in the pro-Trump camp who’ve since stepped forward to offer support — and said: “These are the decent kind human beings and this is Trump’s base of compassionate supporters. They’re not terrible people, they’re not deplorable, they’re not less. These are decent human beings with class and grace.”
Sounds an easy campaign reelection clip for Trump, yes?
Seriously, if liberals can’t even stomach the idea of one of their own, a self-proclaimed Democrat, listening to what Trump has to say — to attending a rally to listen, not vote, but just listen — then their already questionable label as the “party of tolerance” is even more muddied and muddled than thought.
Who knew it’d be a gay guy with AIDS, a “lifelong Democrat,” to drive home that point.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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