Hapless Donald Trump has now been timidly whining about John Lewis for twelve hours

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Donald Trump may have finally found a political adversary he can’t figure out how to successfully attack on Twitter – not that he isn’t trying. One day after civil rights legend Congressman John Lewis accused Trump of not being a “legitimate president” and vowed to boycott the inauguration, Trump got up early to predictably begin teeing off on Lewis on Twitter. But after twelve hours of trying to figure out how to hit Lewis from a meaningful angle, Trump is still flailing away.

Trump seemed to know he was wading into tricky territory when he first began attacking John Lewis this morning. Instead of going for the usual cheap personal insults, Trump appeared to be trying to dance around the strategy of pegging Lewis as being a bad Congressman while not placing himself on the wrong side of Lewis’ celebrated civil rights record. But that didn’t go well. In a two part tweet, Trump ranted that “Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk – no action or results. Sad!”

That resulted in Twitter users playing up all the “action” John Lewis spurred with the Selma march, and the beatings he took in order to make it happen, while all Trump seems to do is “talk, talk, talk” on Twitter. By 8pm, Trump was still trying to find his angle, now seemingly asking for Lewis’s help, and referring to imaginary fires: “Congressman John Lewis should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the U.S. I can use all the help I can get!”

Twelve hours later Trump is still striking out. Give it another few hours, and his increasingly timid whining about John Lewis may dissolve into outright groveling.

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