Trump’s Twitter Presidency Is The One We All Deserve Many people think Trump’s a bad president, and a dangerous one when he tweets. Yet, ironically, they can’t manage to look away.By Gracy Olmstead
June 8, 2017 We’ve already heard that President Donald Trump is a cable news guy. He loves watching Fox and other television news shows, gets frustrated with bad news coverage from the “lamestream media,” and is prone to copious TV-watching at night, according to White House sources.
We’ve also heard that Donald Trump has a rather short attention span. He’s long been notorious for his distractibility. According to Foreign Policy, NATO officials asked heads of state to keep their remarks under four minutes for the U.S. president’s sake during its discussions last month.
Now, following a storm of controversial @realDonaldTrump tweets throughout the last week, we’re talking about the president’s use of Twitter and his social media engagement. He tweets things that contradict or disregard official White House statements, making for questionable PR practice. He occasionally makes foreign policy or national security statements that the media obsesses over, and the White House quickly contradicts. Obviously, Trump’s Twitter can be a headache for his staff. For the rest of us, it’s at times confusing, amusing, or alarming, depending on the tweet.
But how accusatory can we actually be? In demonstrating his addiction to social media and cable news, it’s become increasingly clear that Trump is just like us. Yes, we need more from our president—more professionality, decorum, dignity. But do we deserve more? Do we even want more?
The Plank In Our Collective EyeThe funny thing is, Trump’s Twitter activity has always been greeted with a sort of glee on both left and right, from the earliest days of his presidential campaign until now. Yes, there’s also horror, occasionally: from folks who fear his tweets undermine diplomacy or national security, from the White House team whom his candor contradicts.
But Trump’s enemies seize upon every tweet as a sign of increasing decay and corruption. Those tweets feed their mantra of doom. They make for good headlines, and welcome both snark and ire. And more often than not, one must admit, Trump’s tweets help legitimize their furor—he’s not a deliberate or thoughtful tweeter. He’s a reactionary one, whose tweets often seize upon emotional grandstanding rather than diplomatic messaging.
Trump’s supporters, on the other hand, delight in his ability to smash the status quo and the polished façade of establishment politics. They like his contradictory, contrarian nature. The tweets he posts fit this profile perfectly: they capture the unpredictability, the outrage, the reactionary grandeur of Trump. He won’t be put in a box, even when he limits himself to 140 characters.
Our Society’s Obsessed With Social Media<..snip..>
http://thefederalist.com/2017/06/08/trumps-twitter-presidency-one-deserve/
