There are ways to explain that a $400 million plane gifted by Qatar is being taken out of service again for additional upgrades, and there is the White House posting a photo of Trump on the steps of Air Force One with the single word “planemaxxing” and the caption “Say less,” which is the communication strategy that produces Adam Kinzinger writing: “They had an embarrassing story about the shitty plane, so they double down like it’s awesome.”
The Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8i, which Trump flew for the first time on July 1 to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, N.D., and which he then abandoned for the old Air Force One during his return from the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, citing what he denied was a security precaution, is back in service suspension while undergoing further upgrades, per HuffPost’s confirmed reporting today. Trump had described the plane in July as “maxed out,” which is the phrase that the White House converted into “planemaxxing,” using the internet slang suffix “-maxxing” that typically describes the optimization of a personal quality or routine, applied here to a presidential aircraft that is not currently flying because it requires more work.
“Planemaxxing” is a compound of “plane” and “maxxing,” where the “-maxxing” suffix, per its internet usage, implies pushing something to its absolute limit, as in “looksmaxxing” for optimizing one’s appearance, or “gymmaxxing” for maximizing physical training. The White House used it to describe an aircraft that is grounded. The critics who described the post as “embarrassing” did not dispute the word’s structure. They disputed whether “grounded for more upgrades” and “maxed out” are synonyms, which they are not.
Qatar gave the United States the plane. The plane required significant additional investment to make it functional as Air Force One. The plane flew twice and is now back in for more work. The White House described this as planemaxxing. Kinzinger called it a shitty plane. The plane remains in service suspension.
When the White House responds to a plane being grounded by posting internet slang about optimization, and a former Republican congressman calls it embarrassing and shitty in the same sentence, what exactly is being maxxed?
Sources
HuffPost: White House’s ‘Planemaxxing’ Post Sends Critics Into A Tailspin
