A new video by the New York Times’ opinion section casts President Trump as something akin to Darth Vader or Emperor Palpatine in the iconic “Star Wars” franchise.
The newspaper’s tweet on “Trump: Episode 45 — The Final Straw” was seen on Twitter nearly 945,000 times in less than 24 hours.
“Chaos has engulfed the Republic,” the video begins in the vein of the science fiction movie’s famous opening crawl. “For three years, Trump and his allies have ushered in the obliteration of moral norms for personal gain. But now, the president has launched a fresh assault on fair elections — the crowning glory of American democracy.”
“To restore some semblance of order to the universe, Nancy Pelosi has announced an official impeachment inquiry into the president’s abuse of power in pressing a foreign government to investigate his political rival,” read the text, a reference to Mr. Trump’s private conversations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The video ends by directing readers to a Sept. 22 piece by David Leonhard titled “Donald Trump vs. the United States of America; Just the facts, in 40 sentences.”
Viewers lampooned the newspaper for turning impeachment into fodder for “Star Wars” parodies.
Some reactions include:
- “What are you smoking at the NYT offices these days?”
- “Is…is everything okay over there?” the conservative website The Daily Caller asked.
- “I’m embarrassed for you guys.”
- “Someone finally did ’Star Wars’ worse than Disney.”
The media watchdog NewsBusters called the video a “farce” that shouldn’t be repeated, “anytime soon (or ever).”
“The president has launched a fresh assault on fair elections.” Unfortunately, this isn’t happening a long time ago in a universe far, far away. pic.twitter.com/EUuAptsKJv
— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) September 27, 2019
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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