Melania Trump’s Back To School #BeBest Tweet Backfires
Melania Trump took to Twitter this week to promote her #BeBest initiative aimed at preventing cyberbullying. It didn’t go well, according to Elite Daily.
As you’re likely aware if you’re a parent, tens of millions of schoolkids across the country will be heading back to school in the coming days and weeks. And for Mrs. Trump, who has made reducing childhood cyberbullying a focus of her term as First Lady, figured that now would be as good a time as ever to promote her cause.
“It’s #Backtoschool for many youth this month. As you begin a new year, how will you be the best you? #BeBest”
Twitter was not sympathetic.
Several users contrasted her efforts at reducing cyberbullying with her husband’s own history of using Twitter to attack, belittle, and call names of his opponents.
How indeed. Begin with your family at home. Stop them online bullying, lying, boasting, disrespecting, scolding, racebaiting. Then let them start praising and honoring for well intended acts people they disagree with. Just an idea.
— PG Kroeger (@PGKroeger) August 7, 2018
Have you asked your husband @POTUS this question?
— felinesexy (@felinesexy) August 6, 2018
Other users were even more direct, such as the one who tweeted about her desire to see Melania’s husband, and some of his family members, put into prison.
By campaigning, advocating and working like hell to get you and all of your terrible friends and family out of office and, where possible, into prison! ??? #BeBest
— maura quint (possibly parody sometimes depending) (@behindyourback) August 6, 2018
User @604Carrie invoked the upcoming 2018 mid-term elections.
By voting democrat?
— Carrie Ryan (@604cr905) August 7, 2018
Another user referenced the recent controversial immigration policy that resulted in kids separated from their parents, with some being held in detention centers that were more like prisons.
Will you be letting them out of cages for school or do they have to stay in them?
— one pissed off Polack (@1pissedPolack) August 6, 2018
User @miss_peach invoked Mrs. Trump’s predecessors in the office of First Lady, Michelle Obama and Barbara Bush.
I think I'll teach my kid more about Michelle Obama and Laura Bush. They were smart, hardworking, compassionate First Ladies who didn't spread birther nonsense.
— miss speech (@miss_speech) August 7, 2018
As previously reported by the Inquisitr, it’s been a tradition for some time now for First Ladies, lacking political power, to take on a cause of their own outside of their husbands’ own legislative agendas. Michelle Obama, for example, famously promoted healthy school lunches, while Laura Bush, herself a former librarian, promoted children’s literacy.
According to multiple sources, Melania Trump’s East Wing does not need, or wait for, sign-off from the president’s staff before weighing in on the day’s headlines or reporters’ inquiries https://t.co/lWKbxiLlNh
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) August 8, 2018
After about a year of not naming what her cause would be, Mrs. Trump eventually landed on focusing on teaching children about the need for “positive online interactions” – in essence, taking on cyberbullying.
She later met with executives from Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and others to talk about her initiative, which she named #BeBest.
The initiative was harshly criticized in light of her husband’s behavior on social media – something which, according to a companion Inquisitr report, didn’t escape the First Lady’s notice.
“I am well aware that people are skeptical of me discussing this topic. I have been criticized for my commitment to tackling this issue, and I know that will continue. But it will not stop me from doing what I know is right.”
According to the campaign’s website, the initiative focuses on three “pillars”: well-being, social media use, and opioid abuse.
