Donald Trump's social media strategy? 'Be associated with interesting quotes.'

Donald Trump
(Image credit: Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

Early Sunday morning, Donald Trump was indulging in his favorite pastime when he landed himself in a bit of hot water. Or, at least, it would've been hot water for a candidate of lesser conviction, but for Trump, it was more of a tepid splash. It started when he retweeted this quote:

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Turns out, that platitude is a quote originally uttered by one Benito Mussolini, also known as the fascist dictator of Italy in the 20th century. It found its way onto Twitter thanks to an elaborate scheme by Gawker, which created the Twitter bot @ilduce2016 for the express purpose of baiting Trump into retweeting a fascist's words. When it worked, of course, people took note.

The Donald himself, however, is less than worried about the whole kerfuffle. When asked on NBC whether he wanted to be associated with a fascist like Mussolini — a comparison many have already drawn — Trump responded, "No, I want to be associated with interesting quotes." He went on to explain that he does "interesting things" on his social media accounts, which have racked up "almost 14 million" followers combined, and, "Hey, it got your attention, didn't it?"

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Kimberly Alters

Kimberly Alters is the news editor at TheWeek.com. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.