As part of his family’s ongoing mission to Make America Great Again, on Monday night Donald Trump Jr. rolled out a new, grown-up version of your favorite thing about doctor’s visits when you were a kid: Highlights magazine’s “What’s Wrong?” feature. But instead of a drawing of kids frolicking on the playground, now you have to spot the mistakes in a heinous graphic comparing the Syrian refugee crisis to a bowl of Skittles. Put on your thinking caps and take a long, hard look at this tweet. Answers below!
(1) It compares the 4.8 million Syrians forced to leave their country as a result of a long and brutal civil war — half of whom are children — to pieces of candy.
(2) There may be a second racist angle.
(3) The math is wrong. Mashable explains that if we assume the bowl contains 6 ounces of Skittles, “That’s 162 Skittles, including three Skittles that would kill us, or,
around a 1.9 percent chance you will be killed by a Syrian refugee.” According to a recent study by the CATO Institute, Americans actually have a 0.000000027 percent chance of being killed in a terrorist attack.
(4) The grammar is wrong.
(5) It’s plagiarized. Joe Walsh, a former U.S. congressman from Illinois, posted a tweet with almost identical wording last month:
A similar meme dates back to at least 2014:
And it may be even older:
Did you spot all five? Our condolences. You’re following this horrible election way too closely.
