Fly Away Tweeting Trump

What once was a friendly social media network has now become Donald Trump’s battle ground for words. Twitter’s mission is “to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.” Donald Trump has taken full advantage of these features which has caused an uproar in our current society. Trump has used his twitter account to defame and threaten politicians, even from his own party, and to destroy the credibility of many news networks with only 140 characters. Past presidents had twitter accounts that were used to communicate with the people to update them on the most current policies and events happening in the White House. Though presidents have had the ability to tweet, it was never a tool used to attack others; this all changed when Trump was elected. Although the immediacy of tweets may seem appealing, twitter is not an acceptable forum for our current president to communicate with the people.

Trump is Twitter’s most famous “troll”. As defined by Techopedia, “a troll is a member of an Internet community who posts offensive and controversial comments”; they are bullies. “Trolls” make obvious and inflammatory statements that are meant to bait other internet users into reacting.  A perfect example of Trump’s “trolling” occurred this past Monday. Trump targeted congressman Adam Schiff who was assigned to determine whether Trump’s campaign assisted Russia’s influence during the 2016 election.  Trump tweeted, “Sleazy Adam Schiff, the totally biased Congressman looking into ‘Russia’, spends all of his time on television pushing the Dem loss excuse!” Instead of keeping his opinion to himself regarding Schiff, the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Select Intelligence Committee, Trump had to blast his dislike for Schiff on twitter to slander his reputation and manipulate the minds of his followers. This is a blatant abuse of his platform. However, this is a common tactic used by Trump. All throughout the election Trump tweeted about his opponent Hillary Clinton labeling her as “Crooked Hillary”. Every tweet about Clinton was negative and the sole purpose of his tweets were to tear her down, not only as his opponent, but as a woman. It is one thing to campaign, it is another thing to target someone personally. The list of who Trump has bullied on twitter is extremely diverse; he’s insulted Barack Obama, Rosie O’Donnell, Macy’s, Snoop Dogg, T-Mobile, the cast of Hamilton, Saturday Night Live, North Korea, Meryl Streep, and many others. When will Trump realize that bullying others via social media in a public forum is only weakening his image and decking his own credibility?

Instead of spending his time tweeting about important policies or events currently happening in the world, Donald Trump spends his time defending himself against “rumors”, “fake news” and trying to perfect his image. One of Trump’s most used Twitter topics is “fake news”. According to USA Today, Trump has tweeted about “fake news” 61 times in the past 6 months. Trump also took to twitter last week, on July 16, 2017, to discredit a recent poll released by ABC News and The Washington Post. The poll concluded that 67% of Americans do not like Trump’s use of Twitter. People commonly associated the words “inappropriate”, “insulting”, and “dangerous” with Donald Trump’s tweets. Angered by these results and receiving the lowest presidential approval rating in history, Trump tweeted, “The ABC/Washington Post poll, even though almost 40% is not bad at this time, was just about the most inaccurate poll around election time!” The purpose of tweeting these remarks were to challenge the credibility of ABC News and The Washington Post, as well as deviate away from the results of the poll so they become obsolete; everyone will be talking about his new tweet.  On this same day, senator John McCain’s surgery caused Mitch McConnell to table his healthcare bill indefinitely and 9 people in Arizona lost their lives in a flash flood with fourteen families being effected. Trump was more concerned with his image than the other events going on in the world. Twitter makes it possible for millions of users to know what’s going on in the world at the exact moment the tweet from the president is sent. The president could have shed light on these important current events but chose not to do so. He is continuously showing the American people that Twitter is his public diary to rant daily rather than a place to educate the American people on what is going on in the county.

Having direct access to communicate with the people through Twitter gives a tempting ability to voice whatever someone wants, whenever they want.  The most recent and appropriate example of this dangerous ability occurred today when Trump tweeted out a “decree” banning transgender persons in the military. Trump did not go through the pentagon, sign anything into law or go through congress. He simply just sent a tweet out. According to The New York Times, “He [Trump] said he had consulted generals and military experts, but Jim Mattis, the defense secretary, was given only a day’s notice about the decision.” Trump’s decree came months before the review, of banning or allowing transgender persons in the military, was to be completed in December. When Trump makes unpredictable moves like this, his advisors must then go and untangle the webs that his tweets stick them in. The carelessness displayed by Trump’s daily behavior on Twitter proves how ineffective his presence on the social network is.

In contrast, having the President communicate with the people through Twitter shows us his true colors. We are not getting a filtered and censored version of our President. As perfectly stated by Farhad Manjoo from The New York Times, “Before the election, during the election and after the election, we’re all learning very important things about Trump from the way that he behaves through this unfiltered medium, so our discourse and our democracy would not benefit from removing that outlet for Trump, so that the only version of him we saw was one that was approved by his handlers.” If Trump did not have a twitter throughout the election and now during his presidency, we would be unable to truly see the man who is running our country for who is he not only as a president but as a man. The American people would be left in the dark and feel even more scared than a majority already do. Now, the people at least know the man who they are up against or supporting.

Although Twitter has become a huge phenomenon where people across the country can communicate with one another instantly, it is not an acceptable forum for our current president to communicate with the American people. We should leave the official communication between the president and the American people through press conferences and other news sources. This way, crucial information pertaining to the country can be fact checked, approved, and sensibly thought out before being projected to the world. This way, all the information we are getting is appropriate and accurate.