Flip-thump Up Trump

I see this as poetic justice. The caravan of an unpopular president going by to his gulf coarse on the dime of a bicyclist. Even though unexpected the cyclist recognizes right away what is going on and reacts. The caravan after passing this taxpayer had to slow down to make a turn and the bicyclist had a chance to stick the finger as far as it will go. adamfoxie

The departure of President Trump’s motorcade from his Sterling, Va., golf club on Saturday afternoon was chronicled as dutifully and minutely as the retreat of some great army.

The president left Trump National Golf Club at 3:12 p.m. after spending the day there on the edge of the Potomac River.

A thick column of black SUVs escorted Trump past two pedestrians, a Guardian reporter wrote in a pool report — “one of whom gave a thumb down the sign.”

“Then it overtook a female cyclist, wearing a white top and cycling helmet, who responded by giving the middle finger.”

The cyclist was photographed for posterity. So was an “IMPEACH” sign held aloft outside the golf club that day.

On Twitter, Voice of America reporter Steve Herman offered his account as an eyewitness to the following events:

“The cyclist flipped off @POTUS a second time when the motorcade halted at the traffic light,” he wrote. “No, we do not know her name.”

Nor does anyone know if Trump, behind bulletproof windows, had seen either of the cyclist’s streetside salutes.

But with knowns and unknowns thus established, the world set about interpreting a middle finger’s significance.

Newsweek wrote, perhaps speculatively, that “to flip off the president of the United States” seemed to be the cyclist’s single-minded goal.

[People can’t stop being inspired by this fake clip of a little girl insulting Trump]

The Guardian avoided analysis. The Reddit commenter zablyzibly did not: “Some heroes wear bike helmets.”

Accused of polluting the record of a motorcade’s passage with details that were not, really, news, Herman defended himself. “The cyclist’s act has certainly generated an emotional reaction among many,” he wrote.

We’ll go him one better. That fleeting, vulgar indignity to the world’s most powerful person was not just news, but a historical tradition.

By Avi Selk

The Washington Post