Snooze of the Union: Joshua Trump’s power nap goes viral

Between the late bedtimes and early dawn tweets the leader of the free world is famous for needing four hours’ sleep but his State of this Union guest, Joshua Trump lived up to the name — nodding off mid-speech. The 11-year-old — who is not associated with Donald Trump but was bullied at school because of his surname — was invited as a special guest of the family to the yearly address. 

The child was seen as formalities commenced in Washington on Tuesday 21, appearing presidential in dark tie and a white shirt but he succumbed to Trump’s words’ soporific cadence. The middle school student from Delaware appears to have found his fame. 

Pictures of him catching 40 winks immediately went viral on Twitter, where several hailed him as an unlikely talisman of the anti-Trump “immunity” while one wag remarked: “Joshua Trump talked for many Americans.” Forced to survive months for sharing the exact same surname as the president of bullying, Joshua dropped out of college and told his mom he had lost the will to live. 

He says achieving fame was never his target and he only wanted to match. “They state are you associated with Donald Trump? And I say, ‘Can I be here if I’m related to him'” The information site was told by the schoolboy in December Inside Edition. The mockery became so awful that his parents finally pulled him from college in 2017 and educated him at home for a year, before re-enrolling him once he had been expected to start middle school. His college instructed his teachers not to use his surname and disciplined five pupils, who apologized to the boy. 

Melania Trump has made her campaign the centerpiece of her legacy but there were few concrete measures aside from public looks and discussions. Her effort has been undermined by regular criticism of her spouse for denigrating public attacks on petty name-calling, critics and the media, in addition to foes. 

“The first woman is in a really difficult place,” Claudio Cerullo, the founder of the site TeachAntiBullying.org, told AFP. “I’m hopeful that she’s very impactful upon her husband.