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The Trump Campaign Just Can't Stop Plagiarising Other People

This time it's a racist meme about Skittles and refugees.
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TIME Magazine/Youtube
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Another day, another plagiarism controversy to embroil the Trump presidential campaign.

At the Republican National Convention, we had Trump's wife Melania blatantly crib an entire section of her speech from an address Michelle Obama gave at the 2008 Democration convention. Ironically, it was a paragraph about passing on important lessons to your children about working hard.

Donald Trump Jr has had a few plagiarism claims of his own, while Donald himself has had a number of plagiarism problems as outlined in this lengthy Daily Beast article, including in sections of his Trump Institute textbooks, on his official website, in opinion pieces and even his campaign slogans.

Trump Jr is again in the spotlight, however, for a racist meme about Skittles and refugees.

Yep, you heard that right.

Aside from comparing millions of people fleeing bombing, beatings and poverty to a sugary treat enjoyed by the world's richest countries, there's obviously the blatant racism of claiming three in every group of Syrian refugees "would kill you". Presumably the image is meant to tap into the latest terror incidents in the U.S., where several bombs were planted in New York City, and a separate incident where an ISIS supporter stabbed several people in a Minnesota shopping mall.

Never mind that the bombing suspect, Ahmad Khan Rahami, was of Afghani descent. Not Syrian. And that the man in the stabbing incident, Dahar Adan, was of Somali descent. Also not Syrian.

No, let's focus on the meme itself. The argument about Skittles and refugees has been used by right-wing groups for a while -- even by our own One Nation senator Brian Burston -- so it's a well-known argument. So well-known, in fact, that Trump Jr seemed comfortable in simply copy-pasting it from another guy's tweet:

That's Joe Walsh, former Republican congressman and now conservative radio show host. As you can see, the similarities are a little interesting.

That's at least the third plagiarism claim to hit the Trump presidential campaign. Their communications team seems to have mastered the Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V cut and paste function, if nothing else.

For their part, Skittles came back with a pretty classy reply:

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