Oprah got some well deserved flack last week when she made a seemingly clueless tweet following Trump’s meeting with Obama. As you know, Trump seemed humbled and conciliatory after speaking with Obama for 90 minutes. He indicated that he would keep key parts of Obamacare, that he planned to honor US involvement in NATO, and like he also might be more reasonable than everything he’s done and said to date would indicate. As you also know, Trump was woefully ignorant about the requirements of being President and seemed unaware of basic requirements of the job. Plus we’ve seen Trump say one thing and then deny it or do another, sometimes within an hour or two. He can’t be trusted, this is a scary time, and so many of us are worried about our healthcare, social security, about potential raises in taxes for the middle class, and about a general attitude of hate and discrimination which has flourished in the wake of the election. This is what Oprah tweeted:

Everybody take a deep breath! #HopeLives! pic.twitter.com/YqNJSUab3a

— Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah) November 10, 2016

It’s easy enough for Oprah to tweet that from her massive compound while cuddling her spaniels and golden retrievers. She’s probably going to save millions of dollars under a Trump presidency and it’s not like she’ll be affected by cuts to social service programs. Oprah has rolled back her comments somewhat and admitted she made a mistake. Oprah talked about the tweet during a Q&A discussion with director Ava Duvernay following a screening of Duvernay’s new documentary, 13th. (Available now on Netflix.) It doesn’t sound like she’s apologizing exactly, just saying that she shouldn’t have addressed her tweet to everyone because it was more personal than that.

“Y’all heard about my tweet problems?” Winfrey asked a crowd on Sunday in Los Angeles…

Winfrey was slammed for the tweet throughout her mentions. “This is the second time I’ve had tweet troubles,” she said on Sunday. “And it’s the same lesson, so Jesus, I hear you. You don’t have to tell me again.”

Winfrey recalled getting in hot water when she had just started OWN for telling “everybody” with a Nielsen box to turn on her network as a way to increase ratings – and she explained how using “everybody” again was her mistake.

“I couldn’t breathe after the election,” she said. But seeing Trump and Obama together at the White House gave her a renewed sense of optimism. “I was expecting tension, awkwardness, and strain. So when I saw them sitting together, I actually took a picture of the screen that said ‘President-elect Trump honored to meet Obama.’ And President Obama was being so gracious, and I heard Donald Trump say, ‘He’s a good man.’ I heard Donald Trump say, ‘I’m going to be seeking his counsel.’ I literally went [deep breath], I can breathe now,” Winfrey said.

“My mistake, and this is what I know to be true: you can never talk about everybody,” she added. “Even in your arguments with your husband and your children. Don’t talk about what you should do, what you ought to do – you can only speak for yourself. So what I should have said was, ‘I just took a breath.’ What I said was, ‘Everybody take a breath – #HopeLives.’”

Winfrey said that perhaps a better hashtag would have been #CivilityLives, “because this was more civil than I expected it to be.”

The legendary talk show host has spoken out against Trump in the past, even comparing him to a “demagogue.” She said Sunday that her tweet was only in reference to the “transition of power” and not Trump’s policies. “Not, ‘Take a deep breath about… everything.’ No. Not at all.”

[From EW via Huffington Post]

I think I understand what Oprah is saying. She always touting wellness and relaxation techniques so you could read her tweet like she’s saying she could relax for once and that we’re in it for the long haul. She often generalizes her own experiences to other people so she didn’t realize that she shouldn’t do it in this case. Plus at least she left the tweet up and didn’t delete it once she realized it was tone deaf. It is somewhat reassuring that Trump seemed like he was seeking guidance from Obama, especially considering how incredibly ignorant he is about the job of being President. However we’ve seen the people he’s surrounding himself with, we’ve heard the warnings from the Republicans with consciences and even from the most strident right wing pundits. This is not normal, this is not ok and we should not try to normalize this by any means. We need to dig deeper and to stop trying to sound balanced. Treating Trump like an average Republican president is like giving climate change deniers equal debate time with scientists. One side has data and facts and the other is blatantly false. I really hope Oprah is right and that this is a good sign, but chances are low.

photos credit: OWN and WENN