Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump responded to criticism days after tweeting image of Hillary Clinton's face next to six-point star. "They took the star down," Trump said. "They should have left it up. I would have rather defended it." (Reuters)

The controversy over Donald Trump's tweeting of a six-pointed star and calling Hillary Clinton the "Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!" is now six days old, and going strong — in large part because the candidate himself seems determined to extend the coverage.

If we assume that that is not the main objective — which we will do here for the purposes of this analysis, since campaigns generally try to avoid taking actions that throw it off-message and turn off swing voters — then we can appreciate it for what it is: a master class in how not to handle a situation like this.

If you were a campaign staffer looking to short-circuit a controversy, here are five things you would not do:

1. You would not point out that Disney's "Frozen" paraphernalia uses a similar red star

This is Trump's latest — and perhaps worst — defense of the tweet, which he unleashed Wednesday night.

This probably shouldn't even need to be explained, but here goes:

The problem with the original tweet wasn't that the use of a six-pointed star is inherently anti-Semitic. The problem was what else was contained in the tweet with the six-pointed star — the words "Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!" — and that the star was overlaid on top of a bunch of money. This brings to bear some of the most well-established stereotypes and racist beliefs about Jewish people and money.


Donald Trump tweeted an image that came from a June 15 tweet by @FishBoneHead1, an account with a penchant for memes that mock Muslims, black Democrats and more. Trump later deleted the tweet and uploaded it with a circle instead of a red Star of David. (Twitter screengrab)

According to the Anti-Defamation League, "One of the most damaging and lasting anti-Semitic myths involves the relationship between Jews and money. ...  Stereotypes about Jews hoarding money, rich media moguls exerting undue influence, and a disproportionate amount of wealth and control in the hands of the Jewish community are not only false, but are also dangerous." The former head of the ADL, Abraham Foxman, even wrote a whole book about all this, called "Jews and Money: The Story of a Stereotype."

Just how prevalent these stereotypes are can be hard to say with certainty, since people don't like to admit their prejudices. But a 2011 poll conducted by the ADL showed 19 percent of Americans say it's "probably true" that "Jews have too much control/influence on Wall Street."

And the idea that Trump's campaign is unfamiliar with this stereotype strains credulity. Even during the 2016 campaign, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has praised Trump for rejecting money from the "Jewish community" — citing its "control" of politics in America.

And then there's the fact that the Clinton six-pointed-star image originated on a racist forum. There is a reason for that. The Trump campaign might not have plucked it from this forum — it says it found it on Twitter — or realized that the image might be deemed offensive, but it's reasonable to assume it was created with some form of anti-Semitism in mind, given the content of the forum. It would be far too big a coincidence otherwise.

The "Frozen" defense is straw-man politics, plain and simple. And it looks like it.

2. You would not jump into a delayed double-down

This story broke on a Saturday of a holiday weekend and just as easily could have petered out before people got back to work three days later, on the Tuesday after the Fourth of July. The campaign quickly deleted the tweet and replaced the star with a red circle — apparently acknowledging its fault. Reporters seeking comment on the flap, as usual, came up empty.

Then came the morning of the Fourth of July, and Trump decided to finally respond — on his Twitter feed, naturally.

Suddenly, Trump's campaign was no longer accepting that this was a mistake and moving on. It was doubling down. Conflicting Signal No. 1.

3. You would not dismiss the potential for offense (hey — they got one!)

At the center of this controversy is Trump's social media director, Dan Scavino. After Trump reignited the controversy the morning of the Fourth, Scavino issued his own statement that night — which explained where it came from and appeared to acknowledge the potentially offensive nature of the image.

Fair enough. The campaign maintained that the tweet wasn't meant to offend — but basically suggested that it might offend and acknowledged that it was a poor choice. Hence the deletion.

4. You would not say that this thing your campaign deleted to avoid offending people should never have been deleted

Or not. Trump on Wednesday night basically threw his social media director under the bus.

"I said: 'You shouldn't have taken it down.' You know, they took the star down," Trump said in Cincinnati, according to The Post's Jenna Johnson. "I said: 'Too bad. You should have left it up.' I would have rather defended it — just leave it up and say: No, that's not a Star of David. That's just a star."

It should go without saying that publicly questioning the decisions of your staff isn't a great campaign strategy — especially for a campaign that is struggling to retain its workforce.

This doubled as a bad decision because it was yet another contradictory signal from the Trump campaign. Was the image potentially offensive? Scavino suggested it was. But now Trump says it wasn't.

5. You would not distract people from your opponent's bad headlines by generating fresh ones for yourself

The director of the FBI this week said there was evidence that Clinton was "extremely careless" in her use of a private email server as secretary of state. He said more than 100 emails containing classified information crossed her server — in direct contradiction to claims Clinton herself had made in the past. The Post's Fact Checker, in light of the new information, gave Clinton's past claims about classified information four Pinocchios — the most untruthful rating.

As our own Chris Cillizza wrote, even as Clinton avoided criminal charges in this case, it otherwise continues to look increasingly bad for her. And House Republicans are now bringing FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch to Capitol Hill to explain it all. Comey is testifying right now.

On top of that, Trump's campaign announced some pretty decent and much-improved fundraising numbers on Wednesday.

But instead of capitalizing on these events, Trump would apparently rather keep talking about the six-pointed star. And his campaign's continued conflicting comments about it just breathes more life into a story that probably otherwise would have ended with a deleted tweet and an acknowledgement that maybe it wasn't a good idea. In a series of Trump controversies, it probably wouldn't have ranked.

Yet here we are, on Thursday morning, and Trump's top spokeswoman is still pressing the issue. Day 6.

Trump's team, of course, will continue to argue that the media has been unfair to them in this circumstance and that they are just defending themselves. The problem with that is even they have, on multiple occasions, appeared to acknowledge their error or the potential for offense — and then changed their minds about it.

What's left now is a whole bunch of conflicting signals from a campaign that can't seem to get its story straight and move past it all.