Most of America was interested in a debate for the first time in months this week thanks to Donald Trump’s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live this past week. Kimmel hit Trump with a question from Bernie Sanders — his guest for the following night — involving a possibly debate in California. Trump said it was a good idea and proceeds should go for charity, Sanders loved the idea, America loved the idea, and several networks lined up to make this happen. We even got a bunch of offers for money, with The Young Turks offering up $1 million towards a debated and Bob Arum’s Top Rank putting up a whopping $20 million to make it happen.
Then Trump pulled out. His campaign released one of those memorable statements online and effectively killed any debate that could’ve happened:
Based on the fact that the Democratic nominating process is totally rigged and Crooked Hillary Clinton and Deborah Wasserman Schultz will not allow Bernie Sanders to win, and now that I am the presumptive Republican nominee, it seems inappropriate that I would debate the second place finisher. Likewise, the networks want to make a killing on these events and are not proving to be too generous to charitable causes, in this case, women’s health issues. Therefore, as much as I want to debate Bernie Sanders – and it would be an easy payday – I will wait to debate the first place finisher in the Democratic Party, probably Crooked Hillary Clinton, or whoever it may be.
It’s one of those “open door/closed door” type of statements, but folks online decided that this statement made one thing very clear about Donald Trump: he’s a chicken. So is Hillary Clinton, apparently, leading to the hashtags #ChickenTrump and #ChickenHillary. Some could likely attribute this to the #BernieBros movement, but the entire election is already dumb enough. #ChickenTrump is a tag that doesn’t need any help to stand and it has led to many folks putting their best ideas forward on Twitter:
It has also brought back two top notch gifs from earlier in the election, giving them a fresh and realistic feeling:
But don’t think that was it for the memes, gifs, images, and reactions. Twitter provided a bevy of reactions for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton refusing to debate Bernie Sanders.
And as long as this continues to be news, the hashtags should continue and should give Drake some reason to clap — since he’s certainly not clapping for the Raptors now.
The only dark side to this current wave of reactions is how it’s giving chickens a bad comparison:
As George Carlin pointed out during the early days of the 21st century, chickens are decent people. They don’t deserve this kind of comparison from the public.
