If ‘Covfefe’ Were A DoD Acronym, What Would It Stand For?

On the evening of May 30, the internet lost its collective mind: President Donald Trump, known for tweeting first and spell-checking later, dropped a hilarious typo: “covfefe.”


Don’t ask me what it means. I have no fucking idea, and it doesn’t really matter; everyone makes typos in their tweets, even if those tweets now carry the weight of U.S. government policy behind them.

But to the horde of journalists desperate for a reprieve from the crushing scandal and outrage cycle that’s plagued the Trump administration since inauguration, “covfefe” represents a chance to both blow off steam and put on their stand-up comedian hat — something political journalists, with few exceptions, do atrociously.

Don’t get me wrong, as far as typos go, “covfefe” is pretty great, the modern descendent of “dayenu” for a civil society now driven by garbage people and their garbage tweets about garbage. And given Trump’s reported propensity to blurt out classified information when it suits him, I couldn’t help but wonder: Did our commander-in-chief just let slip a secret new DARPA program, or some sort of new command focused solely on shitposting?

I asked Task & Purpose readers. Their responses made me giggle — which, in the end, is all anyone ever wanted out of “covfefe”: a moment to forget the American garbage cycle.

Here are some tweets. Leave me alone.

Honestly, this one seems the most plausible:


Then again:


 

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Jared Keller Avatar

Jared Keller

Former Managing Editor

Jared Keller is the former managing editor of Task & Purpose. His writing has appeared in Aeon, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New Republic, Pacific Standard, Smithsonian, and The Washington Post, among other publications.