It’s a tale of mistaken identity that’s as old as Twitter itself.
President Donald Trump announced Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly would replace Reince Priebus as his chief of staff on Friday.
And a Washington Post columnist who shares the same name as Trump’s incoming top aide knew exactly what was coming:
As news of Kelly’s appointment in Washington, D.C., reverberated across the country, people online began mistakenly bombarding his columnist namesake with messages of abuse and congratulations.
It’s all because they didn’t bother to check whether his @johnkelly handle actually corresponded to that of Trump’s new appointee (It doesn’t.).
With his Twitter mentions going into meltdown, columnist Kelly responded with this series of tweets:
His tweets sparked some sympathy:
And one person lightheartedly suggested he should still take the opportunity to serve America:
But while columnist Kelly should probably expect plenty more erroneously directed comments over the coming weeks, he’s not the only person to suffer from having the same name as a Trump administration appointee.
A Scottish man called Steve Bannon often feels the brunt of his White House chief strategist namesake’s decisions via his @SteveBannon account.
Those tweets took on an obscene tone this week, however, following new communications director Anthony Scaramucci’s vulgar comments about Trump’s strategist to a New Yorker reporter.
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