The Patriot Post® · Using Kids to Mock Trump

Just when many Americans thought the Leftmedia couldn’t be more childish, The Washington Post proved them wrong — literally.

“The Washington Post’s Kids Chorus Singing President Trump’s Tweets” is the title of a one minute, 49 second YouTube video produced — not covered — by the paper. It features a group of young children clad in blue choir robes singing various tweets made by the president, accompanied at various times by piano, handclaps, bongos and upright bass.

A February 9 Trump tweet put to the tune of “Camptown Races” opens the video. “See you in court, doo-da, doo-da, the security of our nation is at stake, old doo-dah-day,” the kids sing. Next up, a piano interlude and The Washington Post logo along with the aforementioned title. A March 14 tweet follows with the children singing a cappella. “Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs,” they intone.

Next, several of the children are shown playing bongos while one girl stands before a mic and does what is best described as a beatnik rendition of a May 11 tweet. “Russia must be laughing up their sleeves watching as the U.S. tears itself apart over a Democrat EXCUSE for losing the election,” she says, making air quotes while saying the word “excuse” and looking up in mock disgust.

The video then segues into the group clapping and dancing while using “London Bridge is Falling Down” as its vehicle for a February 3 tweet. “We must keep ‘evil’ out of our country, out of our country, out of our country,” they chant while a solo harmonica plays in the background, and one child passes in front of the group waving an America flag.

Then it’s back to the bongos and the children repeating, “Fake news, fake news,” while the writing below the video adds the words, “A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!” After that, we hear drums and bass, while the children move in slow motion, before one young boy steps to the front. “Who can figure out the true meaning of covfefe?” he asks. “Well anyway, enjoy.”

He is followed by another boy so young he is apparently still in the process of learning how to speak. “A new era in American energy,” he says. “Hashtag Made in the USA.” Another young boy follows. “Great news,” he begins. “We are only just beginning together we will…”

At that point he has lost his way, so he leans forward to get his cue from someone off-camera and continues, “we are going to,” followed up by the group of girls and boys singing “Hashtag MAGA” while an older boy in the back row waves an American flag. The final bit appropriates “God Bless America” to give us the Post’s first-ever slogan. “Democracy dies in darkness,” the group sings, with the older boy once again waving the American flag.

“Decorum dies on video” is more like it. Yet the message the paper leaves just below the video is even worse. “A child’s perspective can benefit pretty much any issue — even those found in President Trump’s Twitter feed,” the paper asserts.

A child’s perspective? It wasn’t children who put themselves in blue choir robes, staged themselves in various poses, selected or played the music used, or chose the background, the lighting or the camera angles. It was new Washington Post Video employee Dave Jorgenson, a former Colbert Report intern who joined the paper on June 22 to “make smart, thoughtful, funny opinion videos off the day’s news,” the paper announced.

“After four days at @washingtonpost, I present you with content,” he gushed on Twitter about his effort.

As of this morning, the video had received a paltry 24,890 views and 152 comments. They were overwhelmingly negative:

“How about we leave 5 year olds out of politics? Anything else is borderline brainwashing. Let the kids decide for themselves what their political beliefs are."

"No one else believes you so you have to trick children to push your narrative. This is just beyond wrong and twisted.”

“This is a new low. Adults don’t believe your ‘fake news’, so you move on to brainwashing kids?”

“I am trying to wrap my head around the notion that a newspaper is doing this — not Colbert, or Kimmel — but a newspaper. The devolution of the press from serious to farce has occurred with alarmingly more speed than expected…”

Devolution indeed. The Hill reporter Jonathan Easley offered his take on the video on Twitter: “WaPo getting kids to mockingly sing Trump’s tweets seems needlessly antagonistic and a dumb move right now.”

Not antagonistic and dumb. Juvenile. And leaving the exploitation of children aside, the real problem with the video is as basic as it gets: It’s not funny. It’s a hackneyed effort with an aura of adolescent snark, resembling something that might have been created in a grade school video production class. As Hot Air’s Allahpundit so aptly states, “Who at the paper thought this was a good idea? If you’re going to drop your pretense of objectivity to mock the president (with children, no less), make sure the joke is worth it.”

First, make sure it’s a joke. After that, make sure it hits its intended target. This video says far more about its creator and a Washington Post willing to put it on the paper’s official YouTube site than it does about Donald Trump. And the fact Jorgenson and the paper’s editors are apparently oblivious to that reality is a great indicator of how out of touch — and terminally adolescent — far too many progressives remain.

Newsbusters’ Tim Graham, who brought the story to a wider audience, wonders if the Post is “looking to market itself to Trump-hating liberals … even if it further erodes any notion that the Post is nonpartisan, fair, and balanced.” With all due respect to Mr. Graham, that ship sailed a long time ago, one inaccurate story after another.

And finally, the children’s parents. Lacking in common sense? Maybe. But far more likely, they’re progressives so dedicated to the cause that they’re willing to conscript their own innocents (most of these kids were clearly younger than the age of reason) into the “Resistance.”

Their worst nightmare? Every one of these kids might be teenagers — or older — before Trump leaves office.