Social media can be a perilous place for high-profile political partisans and media types, because there’s always somebody out there trying to score a funny, embarrassing one-up. And that looks to be precisely what happened Sunday to Fox News host Sean Hannity, who fell for a parody of a Donald Trump supporter Twitter account that he really should’ve thought twice about.
In a way, it’s an appropriate homage to Hannity’s president-elect pal, because Trump’s proven many times to have a cavalier attitude toward retweets. But still, this is both a real head-scratcher and ripe for a little belly laughter.
On Sunday afternoon, the Republican cable news host quote-tweeted the user @donnielilhands—there was your first hint, Sean—who’d tweeted a decided Russo-philic statement at him. Namely, “MAKE RUSSIA GREAT AGAIN.”
Hannity appears to have approvingly retweeted a Trump troll account…? pic.twitter.com/GATqLjim9n
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) January 8, 2017
Hannity left the tweet up for a long while, apparently not realizing he’d approvingly retweeted a Trump parody account with the bio line “Winning Bigly Despite Teeny Handsies.” To say nothing of the fact that urging all Americans to unite in “teamwork” to “Make Russia Great Again” would sure seem like an obvious troll. It was even hashtagged #MRGT.
@RowdyBob89 YES! All Americans must join together to MAKE RUSSIA GREAT AGAIN. Teamwork!! #MRGA
— Donnie L'il Hands (F*ck/You) (@donnielilhands) January 8, 2017
And yet, Hannity fell for it until he finally deleted the tweet after it caught fire on social media.
https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/818209324900253698
This one, though, was still up.
https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/818160112082812928
He ought to be a little more careful next time around, unless he truly intends to stake out a place as an enthusiastically pro-Russia voice on Fox News.
Although that wouldn’t even be terribly shocking given current partisan polarization—thanks presumably to Trump’s fairly open embrace of Vladimir Putin, 37 percent of registered Republicans polled in December had a positive view of the Russian president, up from just 10 percent in July 2014.