He doesn't quite get it, does he? Not only do all of these tweets provide a window into the inner workings of a delusional mind, they also demonstrate how intellectually challenged Donald Trump is. Beyond that, they provide fertile ground for an obstruction of justice case, were "someone" to be interested in crafting one.
60
Great column. What would Trump do without Twitter? The same thing the Wizard of Oz did: scream into an amplified mic. That is why Trump does not have a dog in the White House, by the way.
4
Everybody knows that were he not president, Trump would long ago have been booted off Twitter for continually violating its terms of use. (Hate speech, anyone?) Soon we will have “the full catastrophe” when every single tweet The Donald has ever sent is organized and used as evidence in his impeachment and criminal trials.
6
People who are unable to communicate with other human beings resort to ‘tweets’ to no one in particular.
5
Trump is not doing his job now. Or for the past two years. All he does is rage, tweet, eat KFC, do photo-ops, watch television and make phone calls. How can he possibly do anything else if he doesn't read or listen to intelligence briefings? To assume he is even TRYING to do his job is delusional and grants him far too much credit. I hope Twitter goes down in disgrace eventually for enabling a dangerous president.
5
Twitter, forget the money you're making on this madness. Close his Twitter account. Otherwise you are complacent with this madness.
10
"Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar." - Edward R. Murrow
8
Oh, I think there's still plenty of "sausage being made" in the smoky back rooms of Washington DC. They may not be made by Trump the tweeter, but they're being made. Count on it.
2
Weobservefromafar: It is really apparent to the members of Team Balanitis that only bird brains use Tweeter ... er ... Twit .. whatever it is.
4
Mattis, before he “retired” should have either ordered a bombing of Twitter HQ or had a Navy Seal break both of the Twettster’s thumbs.
Giving Trump access to Twitter is as responsible as giving an arsonist a lighter and two cans of accelerant.
For the sake of humanity, Twitter needs to close Trump’s Twitter account. If not, Twitter is complicit with all of Trump’s lies. Just think of Twitter as a robotic version of Sarah Huckabuck Sanders.
14
And to think that there will be a Trump Presidential Library some day. "Trump" and "library" seems like an oxymoron. Maybe a library with no books and hard drive of tweets.
8
Twitter, can you shut this man down and make him face the people and talk to them in person.
Why do we have to constantly hear him bragging about himself and insulting every who disagrees with him?
How about taking twitter down for one night so that we can have a quiet night?
3
At least when it comes time for the Trump Presidential Library the whole collection can be contained on a floppy disk in a Cayman Islands PO box .
6
When will Trump start explaining his policies to the American people in fireside tweets? It would suit his style perfectly: "My policy is the BEST POLICY there has EVER been. EVERYBODY says it, LOTS of world leaders!" Brevity is the soul of twit.
2
DJT uses Twitter because he is a coward and does not ever want to face direct questions, which either enrage or humiliate him or both. Because DJT never seeks the truth and never seeks to be held accountable for his words and actions. Therefore his tweets are like political violence because we are forced to read them, and he never faces the nation to answer any and all questions like a weasel.
39
I often check Trump's twitter account to read his latest postings but it is the responses that follow that are not to be missed. If you click on any tweet you can read the many, many highly entertaining tweets from a devoted group of the resistance to this nightmare. Does Trump ever check to see how his tweets are being received? What a fool he really is, believe me.
32
"It shows us the entire ruling class strafing one another . . . There are no secrets, no side deals in the shadows, no quiet signaling."
The author thinks we have a "ruling class."
She thinks it operated in secret before, and that secret was better.
We may have an arrogant elite, but they have never been a true ruling class.
They were not all that secret, and it was a good thing they were not. Secret would not be better.
The problem with Trump is not that he makes it public, it is what he makes public -- his own weirdness.
I share feelings with the author and most commenters about Twitter. But there is a silver liner to Trump's use of Twitter - he is leaving us a permanent writing. Same for emails and those who use it. Before those media were at our fingertips we left a much smaller written record. Charges often became he-said-she-said about oral exchanges then, which benefited those who offered a different version from the truth.
2
What job. Between his tweets, the rain and his golf playing Trump has not spent much time working.
Perhaps that is just as well. Imagine if he did read letters and had briefings. We could be in worse trouble. Because he doesn’t listen either.
2
Forgive my ignorance, but given that the Internet was created for the military and the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the military, could the President order parts or aspects of the internet shut down or slowed down? Could he commandeer websites under "imminent domain" or similar? If he were to declare a national state of emergency or (God forbid!) martial law, could he block select internet service providers, websites, email providers, Twitter, and the like?
2
I don't think the historians are going to spend too much time on his presidency or his tweets. He is heading for an automatic ranking of last among all presidents. What they will spend a lot of time on is how he got elected, unless Mueller solves that riddle first.
5
@James Ricciardi -- Democrats have got to face up to how Trump got elected, or this could actually get worse.
They were rejected, and they need to grasp why.
So, is the NSA tracking all Twitter employees, managers, directors of their Board, and all of the same of all contractors and subcontractors of Twitter to ensure that no one is altering POTUS tweets or the archive of same?
4
Is he really doing his job even now, with Twitter in hand?
Which part, other than appearances and impulsiveness? He seems devoted primarily to his own prosperity and survival, and that of his family.
Apparently, the GOP thinks their POTUS is big to fail, but not too big to flail.
1
"While Twitter as a direct line to, well, everyone" Not me or a couple of friends who've ditched social media either partially or in its addictive entirety. It's only you media folks who keep me abreast of Mr. Trump's tweets. Rather frequently over the course of this year, I wished you hadn't done so.
8
I am shocked that our nation’s Tech talent hasn’t figured out a way to launch a surgical strike to take out Trump’s Twitter account.. and any new Twitter accounts he may attempt to setup.
Seems like a low intensity means to disrupt his ranting ... and give us all a Peaceful & Joyful Holiday.... while Trump is Home Alone in the White House feeling sorry for himself. Poor thing.
2
It seems like Twitter is more and more for people who have something to sell, who are constantly stroking their public image, their online brand. Boorish is the word that comes to mind. Most of my friends don't even use it. I, for one, would be happy to return to a pre-Twitter world.
3
vote for a twit - get tweets
TWITUS needs to be removed from office ... GOP stand up and do your duty
3
The CDC's recently discovered pathogen, PTPS, may spell the end to government by tweet. Presidential Thumb Paralysis Syndrome may infect the President and halt his torrential spewing. Unless of course he can be trained to use other digits or appendages.
2
Apparently he has used other digits to grab women's... tweets....
What will historians learn from Trump's twitter feed? 1) How really stupid he is. 2) How much more stupid are Trump's supporter.
6
Maybe how complacent the American people, particularly Congressional representatives and the WH Cabinet, were in the face of looming threat? Or how America's enemies compromised official communications of the US government? Or how Twitter maintained a monopoly? Just for starters....
3
How are we even certain that it is always Trump doing the writing (and thus issuing orders, employment terminations, policy changes).
Remember when one of his lawyers suddenly declared that it was he, not Trump, who issued one of trump's tweets?
Without a couple of vetted witnesses, or at least untampered surveillance video, how does the public (or anyone, really) know for certain that it is actually our POTUS communicating, and not another staffer, family member, or Russian or Chinese operative or not doing the tweeting on his personal account? Don't think it could happen? Neither did Facebook users think their private information would be available to unknown to them 3rd parties including foreign government operatives. Neither did people believe Russian propaganda was capable of swinging an entire US presidential election....
2
It is irresponsible to claim that, because Trump’s Twitter feed is so explicit, we need pay no attention to what’s going on behind the curtain.
As Sen. Durbin pointed out, when Trump calls for “border security,” he is actually expressing his own political insecurity. The same goes for all of Trump’s brags about “strength” and “greatness,” and his allegations of others’ criminality. Trump is a weak, failure of a president who is at serious risk of joining his closest associates in jail. But to see how that is conveyed by his tweets, you cannot take them at face value. Remember to always read between the lines.
6
I totally disagree- there is still a back room where all important deals and decisions are made, and the tweets are the subtext of coded messages being sent from that back room. It's the boardroom. Trump is just the puppet dancing to the tune of the mostly men in the boardroom, and the tweets are just another signal from him to the puppet masters that their commands are being carried out. It's just incidental that millions of his followers read the subtext: they have no idea what the channel of communication is for.
2
Twitter should throw Trump off the platform for the good of the US economy and the world. Launching trade and foreign policy via Twitter is imprecise & confusing, leaving friend and foe alike guessing about our real intentions and creating market-destabilizing uncertainty. This is no way to run the world’s leading democracy, and Twitter could put a stop to it with the click of a menu button.
7
Totally agree with you. Twitter and every other Social Media platform should ban Trump. It would be a public service for the world.
2
It should not have gotten to this point. This is not a matter of some private individual exercising his freedom of speech. This is a governmental employee gaming and subverting the process. The government has to manage itself and not dump the TOS responsibility onto the social media platforms. This is not a Twitter problem. This is a failure of governmental process.
Some subtext endures. Some sausage is still being made somewhere locked away from the internet.
Put a secret camera in Mitch McConnell's Senate office. Bug his phone calls to Charles Koch. I'll be you'll be amazed to find out what's happening there that isn't showing up on anybody's Twitter feed.
3
has anyone ever studied just who all these folks are that live (and die) on twitter? i certainly don't know any, but who has to bother (except journalists) when half the "news" these days is just reports of twitter posts. what puzzles me here is the notion that they reveal anything useful about actual policy or practice. or maybe those just don't make the "news."
2
I value free speech in it’s many forms. However, I also believe in the Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's opinion from Schenck v. U.S. 1919 – “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.”
The damage this temporary resident of our White House, is falsely declaring so many times in his tweets, is causing panic throughout the world and should be banished from the platform of Twitter. That would leave him with Fox News and the Republicans at both the State and Federal Level to do his bidding. This is one reality show which needs to be cancelled without any reruns.
3
Best description ever: "George Conway, also known as @gtconway3d (and Mr. Kellyanne) has become the second most epic troll in Twitter’s short history — after Mr. Trump, of course — by tweeting and retweeting so rapidly that it’s like watching a hostage trying to send desperate Morse code messages with his blinks before the video camera turns off. " Priceless! More please!!
1
A judge in Australia who was hearing a defamation case said something to the effect that we cannot expect logical thought and critical analysis from a tweet. Yet, this is the major form of communication used by your president. It is a dangerous tool for impulsive individuals who do not think through the consequences of what they say or do. Add that to the characteristics of high risk taking and sensation seeking and you have a real problem on your hands... as does the rest of the world, bearing in mind that impulsivity, risk taking and sensation seeking are characteristics of adolescence. Trump’s tweeting gives us access to his stream of consciousness that provides the backdrop for his decision-making. Americans and the rest of the world have a right to be disturbed.
10
Well, I hope that Mr. Mueller indicts him by tweet - singularly appropriate. For sure that will break the internet :-)
5
Twitter and our instant digital “news” era are gifts that keep on giving to all who thrive on attention these days. For those who obsessively crave that attention, tweets are manna from heaven. Not a new question, but why keep hanging on the man’s every chirp?
2
Some years ago when I first heard about Twitter and its 140 character limit I thought, "Nope, not for me. It usually takes more than more than a few words to express a thought worth expressing."
I saw it as the kind of tool that could end up controlling the tool user, in this case, by forcing people to over-simplify, to "dumb down", their thoughts.
Little did I ever guess it would be the perfect communication tool for a future president of the United States.
2
The Madness of King George on Twitter - Twitter should not allow this to happen & by deleting dt's account they may possibly save the country an ongoing embarrassment (or worse) and would hopefully starve the beast
1
Amusing. As an historian, these twitterings have just about as much historiographical value as un-supported Power Point decks. In other words, they're useless for anything except as evidence of where and when the thing was generated. Since they convey nothing else - other than possible documentation of deterioration - don't count on some future analysis to tell anyone what they don't already know.
3
Re the world's champion Twit, glad I'm retired so won't have to read student essays and theses on 'Trump and Social Media'.
1
"...We used to say no one should see the sausage being made. But the digital age of Twitter and Trump turns that on its head. You see not only the making of the sausage, but also the goring of the pig and the butchering, too, followed by the eating of the sausage and then what happens after that...
.....
You haven't looked at too much XML source, have you...
3
"...The lightning-fast, easy-hit addiction of Twitter has Mr. Trump hooked like none other..." [op cit]
--
Here are some reasons why:
—
1. Donald J Trump [“DJT”] is apparently by choice, *not* a long-form communicator. He may however, be a “long-form” [read, strategic”] *thinker*.
2. DJT is the supreme online master of, "Tribal-talk," the not-so-new language of the world-wide masses.
3. Twitter is *the* newly preferred medium [or if you will, "the massage" (remember Marshall McLuhan?)] of America's emerging, and the wider World's ever-enduring, “Tribal-talkers.”
—
And as it turns out, tribal-talk has always been the method used by insurgents, to “shape” [read, “subvert”] the opinions of their listeners--
Why? Because it works, almost every time.
***
DJT is without a doubt, the smartest, most media-savvy communicator in America today. And as we are all beginning to see, that makes him—and also those of *any* persuasion, who choose to adapt his methods—all the more dangerous.
***
So what to do?
—
How does one reach out, to the hearts and minds of those living in Tribal America?
…Clue: Forget all about *any* messaging, with a character-count exceeding 288…(!)
***
And so my friends, the time has come, to begin fighting fire with fire:
Are you ready to start learning, “Tribal-talk”?
Let’s get going!
***
Footnote: In my opinion, “tribalism” spells the *undoing* of democracy. The two cannot coexist together!
1
@ppromet I prefer anti-tribal-talk, read that discourse -of -democracy, the poison idea that will kill tribalism.
1
Question for the lawyers: is the Commander in Chief of the US military subject to military rules and laws? Aren't there limits placed on what members of the military may and may not communicate, and how? Would trump be free to issue military orders via his personal Twitter account? Or to ask for sensitive information information via Twitter, or share such information in that way (such as reveal sensitive information from a close ally with another nation's government without so much as a warning to the ally)? Could he face a court martial for any of that? For anything else? Is the Commander in Chief totally immune from court martial and military law?
For that matter, is Twitter legally obligated to save and store and give free public access to the archive of Trump's private account, given that he has conducted the public's business via that account? Has he essentially tendered his entire account? Did Hillary Clinton tender her private email by using it for government business? If Trump blocks a follower, is he abrogating the follower's or anyone else's rights? Since, presumably, Twitter has the ability to track users in some ways and could be making that data available to third parties without getting users' individual fully informed consent each time, is his use of Twitter problematic in terms of requiring citizens to renounce certain privacy rights or such in order to see/access the "documents"?
7
Clarification: is Twitter legally obliged to provide free access that does not require the person to release personal information, or at least no more information than, say, a public library requires for someone to access government-issued documents, or perhaps no more than the Library of Congress might require; and without requiring people to give Twitter permission to save, store, or share that data with any other party?
2
When reading history about the Rwandan genocide, much of the hype, lies and hatred came through the radio. I have often thought if someone could have shut down the radio would it have stopped the genocide from happening?
Which brings me to Twitter and 45. Will we be looking back on history and saying the same thing?
8
Trump is like my bitter old uncle consigned for the holidays into assisted living, his wife no where in sight, his kids off having fun in Florida and now everyone he thought a friend turning on him. But he is a bitter old man who has the power in the palm of his hand to turn that bitterness against the whole world.
I would not wish him peace exactly, but the visitation of three ghosts in the dead of night to show him who he has become and allow him to become something other than the hater in chief. Perhaps Ronald Reagan could be his Marley and Jim Mattis the ghost of Christmas future. Haven't figured out the rest of the cast, but you get the idea.
But this is not a play, I wish it were and the messages are deadly serious. May we all find joy what ever our point of view, but please Mr. President stay away from the gift with the red button. It is not a plaything or a twitter i phone.
3
The notion that there is a subtext to this souless fool whom the minions of idiocy have planted in the White House, is laughable. He is as deep as a puddle in the Sahara in August. There is no there, there; no humanity, no personam — he is a blob of protoplasm whose sole function is to assure that that protoplasmic sludge continues to consume whatever it is that keeps it from dissolving into the void whence it came.....
9
Please Santa, I really want Trump to be gone! And, could you please also take his family with him?
8
Twitter is irrelevant to Donnie's inability to do his job. He's not doing his job now; getting off Twitter won't suddenly make him curious, informed, intelligent, or accepting of expertise, so he wouldn't become capable without it. This is governing by Twit.
5
Isn't it problematic that the POTUS uses only one private company for these communications? I mean, if POTUS goes on TV to announce some policy or such, all of the major broadcasters are able to carry it; not so with this other form of communication. Isn't he essentially giving Twitter an exclusive and unvetted government contract by using it as his primary and often only way of communicating to the public? He sure seems to be giving Twitter tons of free promotion, including via articles like this one.
4
Perhaps you missed the interview with the head of Twitter when asked why Trump hasn't been deleted from Twitter for breaking it's rules? He said they make an exception for the President.
4
So Dempsey said, essentially, that a POTUS could use his/her personal Twitter account to, say, encourage gang raping a disfavored reporter, and Twitter would disseminate that encouragement? They wouldn't report to law enforcement, Congressional committees, and perhaps the press but refrain from first allowing the tweet to go out to all his supporters, some of whom might well take him at his word and follow through -- gravely endangering another human being?
3
I would not be surprised if the interpretation and/or enforcement of Twitter’s terms of service goes to the courts. Imagine a “Twitter v. Trump”
1
One lesson future historians will learn is that President Trump nicely represents our consumer age. His short tweets and endlessly repeated slogans like "no collusion" mirror advertising techniques and sales pitches he's used his whole life. And like advertising, his tweets (and policies) are mostly lies, relying on fear and insecurity to get people to "buy" what he wants them to.
3
"So what would happen to the president who governs by tweet if he finally did or said something that forced Twitter to throw him off the platform? Could he do his job at all?"
What happens to any addict who no longer has access to the drug of choice?
Withdrawal and, if he's lucky, rehab.
If we're lucky, his permanent withdrawal and our rehab.
5
Here is yet a scarier thought. Ryan Costello is showing us that massive numbers of our legislators are just as nuts and dangerous as Donald Trump is. Getting rid of Trump will hardly be a trickle in the fountain of insanity that now governs us. We look back now at Dubya and think he wasn't so bad - the day may come we look back on Trump and think he wasn't so bad. Be very afraid.
1
Sorry, but I respectfully disagree. Like a “magic” show the tweets are all distraction. The real action is still secret, just look at the run up to the Congressional votes on healthcare or the so-called tax reform bill. The classical “give them bread and circuses’ is still the operating principles of our oligarchs with the exception of trying to put work requirements in place in order to receive bread.
3
"The uses and abuses of Twitter will doubtless be studied by historians in decades to come."
I find it hard to believe that anyone thinks there will be historians in the decades to come, other than historians of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. And those historians will be algorithms, right?
But then it seems there's a bigger tide coming that might just be stemming the STEM-tide that started it in the first place.
"What will the historians of the future learn from the past week in Donald Trump’s Twitter feed?"
Nothing, they wouldn't already know by examining his speeches and behavior when questioned.
He's totally ego driven and thinks every challenge requires an answer. Even what folks are referring to as his "core" is just a prop for his ego.
Haven't you figured that out yet?
BTW, you have OP-ED writers who have a similar personality makeup. They just package it differently.
1
Unlikely as it may seem, Ann Coulter's little tweet the other day reminded me of one of the greatest novels ever written, Tolstoy's "War and Peace," - not in theme or substance, of course, but because of the way our president responded to it.
Trump immediately unfollowed her ... and then followed her orders. It was as if our president had a sudden and humbling vision of what true power is, and it washed over him like a tsunami.
"War and Peace" can be read aa a take down of the Great Man Theory of History - indeed, Tolstoy insists on it being read that way in his Second Epilogue. For Tolstoy, power in society is structured a lot like a pyramid. The person standing at the pinnacle of the pyramid with a vast panoramic view of everything below him might be easily fooled into believing that he has the ultimate power. That, however, is only an illusion: the true power of a pyramid rests in its base. A pyramid perched on its head immediately topples over.
Every demagogue senses the power of his angry base and thinks he can control it. For awhile, some do, but then as it almost always does, true power asserts itself.
Donald Trump has always assumed a mantle of exceptionalism. He claims he's the Best, the Biggest, the Most. He's inführiated by any limits to his power, when the rules that apply to others are applied to him.
One little tweet from one little birdie has made it obvious that the president is boxed in to increasingly untenable choices. He's not the one in charge.
12
Nice to see an opinion piece about Trump's use of Twitter from a technology reporter. While I devour the political reports, this piece gave a new twist, with the idea that Twitter is allowing the public to see decisions made and changed in real time.
But, as implied, the tweets are too short for subtext. Why this decision and not that one? We're left to ponder the context. Occasionally, we can see a Twitter exchange that helps fill in the gaps. But too often Trump is conversing with Fox News, a different medium. To really see the sausage making, we would need Fox News to be converted into a stream of words so that we could more easily run an analysis. Imagine coding Trump's tweets on the basis of how long it takes for him to respond to a Fox News talking head!
If nothing else, I can imagine a new hybrid field - political technology theory - with entire doctoral theses written on the use of digital media in politics.
128
@HN
Subtext? Lol. Thanks for the morning laugh. Had I been drinking coffee at the time, I would have spit it all over my laptop.
Subtext...Trump...in the same sentences...lol! Love it. Trump has all the subtext of a broken weather vane.
29
@HN "Miserable" describes my feelings at the prospect of an avalanche doctoral dissertations new strings of text (Fox strung out, for example) make available.
Look, to begin with it's not clear that Fox and Twitter are different media. Both aim to grab and sell attention. Add to that simple idea another one: Folks studying for doctorates trade in words, not attention, so if they extract text material from these platforms they will be projecting semantic intentions onto organizations that have different intentions. Misapprehension of the empirical object is not a great way to do science.
3
No problem - he's not doing his job now. He watches TV for hours on end (and listens to it the rest of the time), has someone else read security updates, seldom, if ever, reads bills he signs or anything else. His desk is perpetually empty of any work incoming, outgoing, or staying for a while.
As to Twitter, he as dragged down the dignity of the presidency so that nothing and no one is treated with respect or deemed important. It is bad enough that he tweets out his anger at people who show cracks in their sycophant loyalty. It is inexcusable that he does things like announce policy or troop drawdowns in a tweet.
525
@Anne-Marie Hislop-He also has help with tweet creation from Dan Scavino. Sigh.
8
Why doesn't mainstream media stop reporting the tweets if the tweets are not newsworthy?
I suspect majority of citizens don't get Trump's tweets via Twitter app. They see it reported by CNN, NY Times, Yahoo News and so on.
6
@redpill - This is absolutely true. I don't have a Twitter account. If I did, I would not be following Trump. The media doesn't stop reporting his every sneeze because they are attempting to keep our eyes glued on their websites and TV broadcasts. Every pair of eyes, every click, is counted and directly correlates to increased advertising revenue.
Surprise, surprise! ... it's all about money.
1
Last line - "Could he do his job at all?" - is hilarious. That implies that he is doing the job now. Quite the knee-slapper...
6
Good to know that NYT believes there will be historians in the future, given the misguided attack on the humanities that's currently underway.
3
Management by crisis rather than management by goal--
Tweets merely exacerbate all aspects of this problem.
How does any capable manager in any mildly successful business think that this lack of discretion is constructive?
5
They'll learn what everyone but his followers know: that he is an ignorant narcissist who is highly unqualified for the job...
6
"So what would happen to the president who governs by tweet if he finally did or said something that forced Twitter to throw him off the platform? Could he do his job at all? " He can't do it now. He is the proverbial bull in a china shop. He careens from disaster to disaster, oblivious to the shambles that surround him.
4
I hope the next president will not tweet; Trump is making all of us insane with is OCD desire to tweet whatever comes to his slow-witted mind.
2
the limits of twitter are becoming apparent when it is being misused by trump in the extreme. - to spread lies, upend policy, and threatening shutdowns, one minute announcing resignations, the next criticizing the fed chairman over interest rates rising, and then announcing our withdrawal of troops from Syria. or insulting those who oppose him. His tweets show the president with no boundaries or check on the truth dragging those who see read them through his version of innuendo and false facts.
1
Forget last week! What about TODAY?
2
NYT-- The reason I liked this column is the quality of comments it inspired. Even trumpists tried to make their points in a non-confrontational way. That they are out-numbered by those of us not in the cult, is merely a feature of the NYT readership. That said, I am not sure a tech editor was up to this topic. She embraces tech, in fact needs it to sustain her livelihood. What we need is new blood in the tech industry: a) more women and minorities who have real world experience with what bad juju can cause; b) more people with a background in humanities who understand history's repetitive cruelty and are educated enough to implement steps to avoid societal destruction; c) more actual Americans, and fewer Chinese/ Indian nationals with no vested interest in the success of our country, no reverence for its heritage. What we do not need is a tech writer who concludes a pretty lightweight effort with a question:"Could he do his job at all?'(without twitter.) This monster cannot do his job under any circumstances, period. We the People are paying the price for that, as is our the planet and the global community. The only question a columnist need pose is-- who is winning through, during and because of this hot mess? And then expose those winners-- widely, deeply, frequently, bravely--without the polite restraint long associated with the paper of record. Those are the stories history will remember, with gratitude.
4
Perhaps the scariest tweet is the one from Representative Ryan Costello, "If Trump tweets something then we'll do it." The Republicans in Congress are so afraid ot Trump's tweets that they have turned it from a co-equal branch into a rubber stamp. The new Democratic House majority has a chance to change this.
10
I personally think ,Ms. Swisher, that one of the primary areas of interest to future historians, when examining the current actions of this Administration, will be the passivity of the so-called Elder Statesman of Trump's own Republican Party during this particular phase of Trump's Presidency.
It almost certainly be clear to most historians, that despite the multiple signals and growing indications of incompetency and chaos with-in the Trump inner circle, the leaders of the GOP chose to ignore the interests of the nation's economic stability(and capabilities to project power on behalf of a hard won Pax Americana) and blatantly refused to exert it's Constitutional prerogatives of providing oversite and consent to the Executive Branch's more erratic moves, simply in order to avoid weakening their own positions within a teetering Democracy.
5
Does Swisher really believe this? "There is one positive way of looking at this whole situation: The smoky back rooms are all gone now, making way for a 24-hour feed that chronicles every bit of the action under klieg lights. There are no secrets, no side deals in the shadows, no quiet signaling." Wow, maybe she needs to get out of her tech bubble.
1
Kara, I am not a fan of Trump, and I do not use Twitter, but I think we should give the President credit of reaching millions, daily.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
As much as I hate Trump, I have to admit that he has woken up the nation, with his outrageous remarks and actions, each day.
Perhaps he deserves special recognition, maybe even a Nobel Prize for this effort. No kidding.
Yes, middle class America has distant itself from politics.
We stopped voting. We cared, less and less about the nation.
And along came Trump and Trumpsters to frighten us.
Now, people are waking up:
What will happen to Trump?
What about the economy in 2019?
Can Democrats win in 2020?
Will House Democrats impeach Trump?
Happy New Year, Mr. President, 2019?
1
The closing question, "Could he do his job at all?", is not dependent on the availability of Twitter. We already know the answer: No.
6
He is not bright, compassionate, presidential or fit for office. His rampant ego consumes all in its path — the wall he obsesses over should be built surrounding him only, shielding us and civilization from his malignant narcissism and damaging behavior.
History won’t be kind to this would-be autocrat.
9
Will they even have access to his twitter feed? It's his private account, after all, and the content is owned by (perpetually licensed to) a private (non government) for-profit company.
Personally, I think as a matter of law he should not be allowed to use his personal account for government business. Lock Him Up!
6
Dear Concerned Citizens,
If Twitter was to take any action against Trump's usage:
- Trump would go nuts!
- 50m of his followers would go nuts!
- Grassley and Republicans would be holding hearings about Twitter violating Trump's and conservative's free speech rights!
In the spirit of Christmas, let keep the Trump SNL material coming.
1
LOL, my favorite sentence in this article:
"Facebook is too bloated and slow; Snapchat is too small and hard to use for the olds; Reddit is a hot mess."
3
I envy anyone who can just pull up an old video of themselves singing an old song at the Emmy’s to make their current point. Who needs labored reasoning and endless paragraphs with communication skills like that.
1
The best of the week was, "I know tech better than anybody[...]". I had to laugh to keep from crying.
4
He knows Everything better than anyone else (not!), except for knowing himself.
1
Will there BE future historians?
6
“Could he do his job at all?”
Is he doing his job now? Did I miss something?
28
Refresh my memory on this....
When he was inaugurated, Barack Obama had to give up his civilian cell phone for security and historical/archival/public records reasons. Why didn't/doesn't #45?
29
why would twitter need any excuse or reason to shut off his feed ? he doesnt pay for it, does he ? just end it.
oh ok here's 2
1. dangerous societal disruptiveness
2. too many spelling errors
4
The behavior of Trump is seriously erratic and a sign of mental illness. He changes his mind and direction every 24-36 hours. He makes no sense.
It is time to stop this charade of a government before real damage is done.
15
Too late.
7
Trump would be utterly incapacitated at the loss of a Twitter account. 280 characters is the limit, or beyond the limit, of his solid understanding of anything he does. It fits his meager intellect just fine.
If someone would just turn off his cable connection to Fox News, he would be devastated and would have to leave office. Hmmm, someone have some snippers?
9
When Trump speaks on Twitter, what he is really doing is yelling, “SQUIRREL!” He counts on our being distracted as the pack of hunters for the day is about to close in upon him.
He knows that this country has produced a generation that has a 20 second attention span.
He believes that those who still conduct analysis, review history, review his prior inconsistent statements, review his false statements, and review the unethical and illegal conduct that he and his henchmen engage in, will not be heard by those with a 20 attention span.
As for history, I pray our country does not succumb to his madness, that we have the institutions and historical values to fight the infection. Historically, the country’s organic system of balance has restored order, even in times of insanity.
3
How exactly do you come to this less than correct conclusion?
"...There is one positive way of looking at this whole situation: The smoky back rooms are all gone now, making way for a 24-hour feed that chronicles every bit of the action under klieg lights. There are no secrets, no side deals in the shadows, no quiet signaling...."
As Lauren Duca so aptly pointed out almost 2 years ago.... the man is gaslighting and manipulating all of us. There are no secrets? Um, have YOU seen a tax return yet? What do you think Mueller is investigating? Just because he types tripe on Twitter, doesn't mean that everything is out in the open. Horrendous take of this nightmare. If there's one positive way of looking at this whole situation... HUMPH.
14
Dear Mr. President,
America is thrilled and enlightened* by your daily Twitter posts.
Keep tweeting and please, don’t hold back.
*Your tweets are helping Mr. Mueller substantiate obstruction of justice.
9
The president's tweets are an abomination, but voters knew this before the election. The game is just at a new level.
Let's not forget that Twitter is no innocent bystander here. This fits precisely its business model, and speaks to the reality of social media as it was intended.
4
Too answer the last question. He can't do his job now he could never do his job with or with out tweeter. It is our Country's shame that he is there, it is all our shame that he is there at all. There is no way to make the times of 45 normal.
7
Disclaimer: I am not on Twitter, purposefully.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if Twitter enforced some of its own loose rules and kicked Trump off? The FOMO tsunami alone would be fabulous to watch. As he represents their most notorious proponent, Twitter will likely never remove Trump. Still, I would love to see them come up with a valid reason. Even a penalty box to avoid nuclear war?
3
America prefers entertainment to government. Thus, Donald Trump, the PT Barnum of Presidents.
6
"What will the historians say..."
Will Trump's prolific posts be debated- analyzed to support varies academic musings; the topic of Doctoral thesis...
Will psychiatrists view them as hi-tech primal screams while linguistic anthropologists chime in about the spurts of ungrammatical blabbering?
Will one noble soul finally conclude (with Peer-Reviewed acceptance)- Trump was nothing more than an uneducated, lazy man who couldn't be bothered to do better?
17
There was a time when decency, dignity and honesty prevailed in the White House. When you got up in the morning and went to work, there was no concern about erratic behavior or ludicrous tweets eminating from the office, creating uncertainty, unpredictability and stress in the economy. There was confidence that if a serious problem arose, a well educated and calm leader would not do something stupid. All of that is gone. Those who supported Trump should prepare themselves for the biggest case of buyers’ remorse ever.
9
"could he do his job at all?" Unfortunately we know the answer to that all too well----with or without Twitter...
4
You end with the question: "Could he do his job at all?"
What? He is not doing his job. For two years he has demonstrated how inadequate, unfit and incompetent he is at holding office and doing his job.
His tweets measure how he is not doing his job. The only task of which he is capable is to perform AS IF he is back on his reality tv show. He is a pretender. That is why he watches himself perform on Fox Propaganda Network. And this is not a reality tv show, this is reality.
This is why he must be held to account for his incapability and demonstrated incompetence to hold office. And soon...
9
I think i speak for all in saying that Facebook and Twitter continue to pose the biggest dangers to our democracy. There is actually such a thing as chaos creating more chaos. If nothing else, our elected politicians should not be allowed to take to public noticeboards where vetting and validation simply do not exist let alone mitigation.
11
If Trump’s fingers were not busy with Twitter, there’s only two other places they’d be. One might lead to Armageddon, and the other might finally land him in prison where he belongs.
3
many Americans believe President Trump can't do his job now, so whether or not he runs afoul of Twitter and loses that tinny megaphone makes no difference.
3
We had Churchill’s stirring radio speeches to inspire courage and forebearance in his blitzkreig-weary citizenry. We had FDR’s fireside chats. Trump, on the other hand, doesn’t think in paragraphs. He barely thinks in sentences. That he would ever consider the stress and anxiety he causes with these scattershot Twitter-bursts is wishful thinking. Like a sensory challenged child, who cannot function if his shirt label is touching his neck, Tump simply cannot function when he feels aggrieved. He can only focus on relieving his discomfit, real or imagined. His thumbs get the job done.
If only Twitter could invent a “holding pen” for these wretched messages. A ten minute abeyance before released to the world. Given the fact that POTUS has actually deleted tweets, there does seem to be a teensy bit of realization now and then that a particular tweet is so wretchedly bad it has the opposite effect than what he intended. Could there be a “count to ten” twitter feature especially for our President?
Naive, wishful thinking, I know. I just long for some outside force to constrain this man before he truly causes a catastrophe. You know, like Congress should have been doing since January 2017.
5
Trump's use of twitter is a great metaphor of what the modern internet has become. Its not the shiny information superhighway once envisioned. Instead its dumbed-down quick hits of video and blurbs. Its the antithesis of deep thinking and Trump exemplifies that.
10
"his colleagues were waiting for a tweet from Mr. Trump to tell them how to vote"
Pity they don't have minds of their own. SAD!
3
@Joan P,, I read that quote aloud to my 22 year old son. THIS is the real reason we are in this crisis. Congress has no idea what it's constitutional duty is (which actually makes them more powerful than the president) or they simply don't care. The unfortunate equivalent of some low level temp worker just collecting a paycheck. Beyond sad, tragic in the Shakespearean way. Oh Will, where art thou? NOW-- when we need you to interpret and stage some alternative to the madness?
1
Ha, trying to imagine the stable genius with out twitter. His hands would have to be tied to keep them busy. Otherwise he would push the red button.
2
If Melania and Ivanka would go on television and say that their husband and father is sick and needs help, our present national crisis would be over in a matter of days.
6
What is the purpose of this article?
More transparency is better I thought. Yes, politics is a contact sport and from time to time there will be a few bloody noses. So be it.
We want to see more, no less. Too often Americans have been screwed by politics made in private. As the cliche goes, democracy dies in darkness. Let the sunlight sanitize the sausage making phase of the policy development.
We have strong stomachs, we can handle it.
"All Text and No Subtext"
All play and no work makes donny a dull boy.
The column's points are obvious.
Could Swisher write one on the president's use of an unsecured phone?
I think that would have more consequence. It's a massive, insane breach of national security and a flaming example of the man's stupidity.
16
Short of turning itself off, turning off the President would be the second most ethical decision that Twitter can make.
Long past time for these flirtations with giving unmonitored voice to idiots to end.
3
He doesn't read his daily briefs. He probably has not been in the Situation Room since Rex Tillerson called him a moron. He is in love with Kim Jung Un (and Putin). He does not meet with advisers because he needs no advisers. He knows more than his generals. Oh, that's right, he no longer has any generals. He sits in his bedroom in his Air Force One bathrobe watching Fox and figuring out who to blame this time for the collapse of...well, pick something...the stock market, relationships with our valued allies, children in cages. Who besides his treasured fan base thinks he is doing the job.
30
What the tweets prove is that there are 60 million Americans whose stupidity at the ballot box is American exceptionalism at its finest. Trump is but a symptom of that stupidity.
21
140 character tweets perfectly mirrored the depth of trump's understanding of policy and the presidency. Increasing to 240 characters has only served to further expose the vacuum behind the facade.
6
Let's not forget that he doesn't know how to use a computer or email. The President of the United States. Where's that 400-lb kid on his bed when you need him?
3
Trump isn't "doing his job" on Twitter. He is very much the "Great Oz", the weak little man behind the curtain, issuing his edicts. He cannot stand the thought of anyone challenging him, or engaging in any sort of dialogue. Trump is a classic dictator, and Twitter is made for those who want to vent their madness, bark short orders and walk away.
Twitter is governance for cowards. Trump knows he cannot engage with Democrats on any policy issue. He knows that should he spew his racism and bigotry to anyone other than his adoring base, he will be met with serious pushback. Twitter allows him to avoid all this. Trump did not even have the decency to contact Gen. Mattis himself, to tell him of his earlier "departure". He farmed that job out to one of his toadies. And he continues to simply lash out at his perceived "enemies" on Twitter, and rather than take them on personally, he does so surreptitiously and gutlessly. Because he knows he doesn't have the strength to face them with the filth he spews.
And this is what dictators do. They employ a large, rabid group of people to do their dirty work. Trump fires up his base with his ignorant, hateful tweets, because they will do literally anything for him. They hang on his every order, and don't care that he lies. And as long as Twitter permits our nation's first dictator to lie in breathtaking numbers, he will remain our dictator.
20
@ kyle reese
I agree with you, except it’s not just that Twitter “permits” him to lie—Twitter is just a conduit. He lies with or without twitter. Granted twitter lets him reach his rabid, right-wing, racist “base” but without it he’d just have more rallies and reach his people that way, maybe not as instantly, but they’d still get his message. The REAL problem is that the president of the united states is a pathological liar, and the other two branches of government are permitting it. I know there’s the Mueller investigation, but we don’t have that report yet. How is it possible that the president is allowed to LIE, at all? No one is checking his behavior. By not doing its job, Congress is essentially abdicating its basic democratic mandate and enabling a dictator to rule. That’s what’s really intolerable.
2
"So what would happen to the president who governs by tweet if he finally did or said something that forced Twitter to throw him off the platform?"
Oh please, let's find out!
or more trumpian [the same with ALLCAPS]
All trump’s tweets do is give a scary look into a very impulsive, disordered and disturbed mind. One that needs tit for tat to feel good about himself. As far as his twits giving a look to governing in real time? I wouldn’t call this governing.
But thanks giving out George Conaway’s Twitter address. He now has a new follower.
2
He can't do his job now. He diesn't even know what it is.
4
@Susan Wood, Mainly because he just does what he is told to do. Beware of Pence.
I hate Twitter . To think that an individual can just grab their phone and shout out something to the whole world , in my opinion is twisted . There’s no check on the truth , no filter for the most brutally abusive bullying hate and quite frankly I think it’s just plain dangerous .
Think for a minute if there was Twitter when Hitler was around . Just think of the messages that could be sent around the world . As a Jew , that’s not a very comforting thought .
I might not even be here if that were the case .
I hate Twitter .
Karen E from NJ
232
@KarenE - But, your idea of dangerous means what? It means it scares you. Who are you? Nobody! Free speech is dangerous, technology is dangerous, getting out of bed in the morning is dangerous. We can't live our fears.
3
@KarenE
Do you need to be on Twitter? No.
Does anyone? No.
Do you even need to read it? No.
Does anyone? No.
Don't people have hobbies anymore? Reading, writing, painting, drawing? Going out? Dining out? Movies? Friends? ANY activity that is about more than expressing every thought?
A character in the movie The Four Seasons complained that his wife spoke: every thought drops from your brain onto your tongue like a gumball machine.
That's how I see Twitter. I don't use it or Facebook. Some thoughts I like to share. Thankfully I've never felt the need to express every last one to complete strangers that I'll never meet.
Trump's world is Bedlam. Literally. Like the old English mental institution.
Trump has made the WH a Bedlam.
Now, is anyone watching pver the key patient?
31
@Butterfly
I do agree. That is why I like Facebook and particularly Facebook Notes. I do write; I like to write; I like to think.
But it would not make me sad if Mr. Mueller indicted him by twitter. You know - file the documents properly at the Court and then just tweet him the link :-)
12
Twitter will never ban Trump, at least not as long as he's President. Before the Trump campaign, Twitter appeared to be on the verge of collapse--now it's the single most important primary source for what's going on in the White House. As long as Trump is president, Jack Dorsey is never getting dragged in front of Congress to testify. As long aa Trump is president, Twitter will never have to worry about regulatory headaches. But the second they ban his account, they go back to irrelevance, and half their users will likely go elsewhere.
3
'' if he finally did or said something that forced Twitter to throw him off the platform?''
That would happen too late, like after calling for an armed insurrection to contest an election that threw him out.
Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Carl Bernstein said over the weekend that should Democrats win control of Congress in a close election, President Donald Trump might move to challenge the legitimacy of the 2018 midterms.
Bernstein made the comments in an interview on CNN's Reliable Sources on Sunday that focused largely on Trump uses "untruth" as a political strategy.
1
Trump uses Twitter for many reasons. One is that when his opponents respond in Twitter, they stoop to his level of discourse.
Tweets suit him because he is functionally illiterate. Probably is dyslexic, judging by his many misspellings and other errors. This is probably the reason he never reads books and eschews written briefs and reports. An example: Trump didn't know, after reading Mattis' resignation letter, that it criticized his foreign and military policy until other people told him what Mattis wrote.
13
I think it’s more than just dyslexia, he probably has some processing issues as well. There are a number of fine politicians who are dyslexic and you wouldn’t know it. I believe Joe Biden is in that category.
1
I’m intrigued by the prospect of Trump’s Presidential Library being filled with volumes of exquisitely misspelled and horribly punctuated tweets, standing in perpetuity as a monolith of moronicism (in deference to the great man, I invented a word). There’s more than one PhD thesis waiting to be extracted from this literary morass, dealing with everything from the role of social media in modern society, the demise of written English, to the death of democracy.
48
Who would.fund his library? Does he and his ilk even have enough funds to pay the fines and judgments he will have coming up when he is forced out of office? Or perhaps his supporters will pay for some library that no one will visit because there will be nothing to read there except his TWITTER.
2
A trump library? What for?
4
I first learned of Kara Swisher years ago when she was a frequent guest on several podcasts. I'm thrilled that her piercing intelligence and clean, witty prose are now such a prominent feature of the NYT.
I agree with this current column, and by extension, pretty much all she writes. Kara, we and the Times, are fortunate to have you. I hope you will here for a long, long time.
6
she probably has a long career ahead, as she refers to those who resist the instant flash of social media as "olds", suggesting she herself is one of the "youngs".
You do know that the president whose tweets she references here is 72 years old, don't you?
Clearly age is not the determining factor for those who use Twitter.
And Ms. Swisher is quite correct that Snapchat users tend to be younger. This just shows that she knows what she is writing about, as any good tech journalist should.
Would you criticize a sports writer who said gymnasts tend to be young or basketball players tall?
Trump’s tweets beg the question: What IS the context?
We have to consider: What don’t we know about what prompt his tweets? Is this a President that feels cornered, like he’s being surrounded? Or is this a prickly personality that filled a job for which he was chronically and tragically unfit? Or is he someone’s agent, intent on dividing us with every character he tweets? Or is there something else going on, something we haven’t even considered yet?
Is it possible that we are so busy watching the text fly around our screen, convinced we know everything, that we are missing the subtext altogether? It seems naive to think things are as raw, as transparent as they seem.
I wonder constantly how future historians characterize the day-to-day chaos in which we live. Will they look back at these daily eruptions in the wider landscape of a politically turbulent era—or will they view each solitary tweet as mounting evidence of a gathering storm that finally, inevitably reached a climax?
Shakespeare said that “what’s past is prologue.” What worries me most is that we’ve only begun this story. Where it ends up, how it ends up, and what it means in the grand scheme of our history, are questions that we cannot answer at this point. Yes, the text is there for all to see, perhaps even the subtext, too—but the context, the ever important context, is still being written.
5
I could care less about the mediocrity of American Democracy. Americans don't want to hear that the emperor is naked so I will shut up.
Americans deserve Trump.
6
@Mogwai
What "Americans don't want to hear" is the solipsistic misuse of the phrase "I could care less." You mean exactly the opposite, i.e., "I couldn't care less." That means "I don't care at all," the opposite of what you write. "Americans deserve" logical grammar!
2
@Mogwai
Americans do, in fact, deserve Trump. 60 million were stupid enough, or depraved enough, to vote for him. And 100 million or so were apathetic enough to have not voted at all. Disgusted as we never Trumpers might be, Americans got what they wanted, at least those who made an honest effort to vote.
1
@Mogwai
Personally, I think its an illusion and Trump supporters are about 20% of the population. If you looked at twitter, it seems like he has supporters. But look closer, look at what those "supporters" accounts actually are.
For instance,I saw this one just the other day an account with a name like "Amanda Jones" with a stock pic of a woman was tweeting simple one-sentences in support of Trump. But look at the account history, and besides pro-Trump tweets, everything is in Mandarin. Some non-celebrity accounts tweeting in support of Trump are less than 2 yrs old with 12k-24k followers/followings and tweet nothing but retweets of rightist propaganda and pro-Trump tweets - those are amplifiers
Ive done a lot of research on this, and it seems for every 5 amplifiers or bots (run by real people or not), one is a legitimate account. The legitimaye accts are usually older accounts, less followers/following with varied interests and postings. After you notice this, playing "spot the bot (amplifier)" becomes a game. Try it sometime!
2
Twitter loves Trump. Never has one technology conquered and been conquered by one man. It took a President of the US. Twitter increased its 140 character tweet limit to 280 characters for Trump, because Trump is too much of a moron to understand that there ever was a 140 character limit. Before 240, Trump would just run out of space and continue with another subsequent tweet til he was finally out of ideas.
3
All nonsense and no virtue
4
I was doing the math recently and 61 million votes in the 2016 election calculates to .8% - that’s right 8/10ths of 1% of the world’s population voted for the most corrupt, incompetent and possibly the most malevolent person ever to hold what has been up until now, the most powerful office on the planet. It’s not just Rome that is burning while Trump tweets. It’s global.
37
Trump can't do his job at all, with or without Twitter. He's in way over his head.
9
@DS What head?
"We used to say no one should see the sausage being made. But the digital age of Twitter and Trump turns that on its head. You see not only the making of the sausage, but also the goring of the pig and the butchering, too, followed by the eating of the sausage and then what happens after that. Nothing is left unsaid, even if nothing that’s being said means much at all."
Seems apt, except that no sausage is being made -- rather, starting from sausage (international allies, the economy, our institutions, ...) Trump shreds the sausage and leaves the offal everywhere.
9
And to think, all Trump ever wanted was to make the "A" list, membership at all the best clubs and to be invited to all the old money soirees.
Hasn't worked out so well for the old boy I don't think. I mean really, can you imagine showing up at Cypress Point, or Augusta with him in tow to be part of your foursome? I think not!
6
Brilliant! Oh for the days of President (Dear Mr. President) Obama and his beloved BlackBerry ...Happy New Year wherever you may find it...
4
Here's a "disruptive" idea:
Throw him off Twitter and see what happens.
16
Much like our banks are Too Big To Fail or Jail, systematically-bigoted Twitter thinks he's too "newsworthy" to ban. They and his GOP party-cult are not spineless, but active collaborators.
I block even links to the site like any other ad, now.
1
There are good people in the media who have been doggedly tracking how many times Trump has lied to the American people. I realize that this is probably a full-time job by itself.
But I am also wondering if anyone has tracked how many times Trump has violated Twitter's Terms of Service. I sorely wish that this statistic could be gathered and dumped on Twitter's doorstep each time a violation happens. The best holiday gift we could possibly receive would be a suspension of Trump's Twitter account.
263
@Joyce - Lie counting will be seen to have been one of the great tricks of professional propaganda, worthy of an Emmy if they gave such things out. Instead they give out raises, which propagandists like better than awards anyway.
5
When it comes to Trump it's fitting that "twitter" is an extension of "twit".
13
The history of politics has always been the history of new media supplanting old ones. I'm sure people were shocked when Franklin Roosevelt attended the Democratic convention in person, or gave direct addresses to the whole population on the radio. The problem with Trump is not that he uses Twitter and new media, but that he is a blithering freakin idiot who listens to no sound advice and thinks he knows it all because he watches "the shows". And on top of that, he's a blockhead who will fly this country straight into a mountain, given the chance. Roosevelt was no blockhead.
17
So let’s state the obvious. Twitter loves this!
3
Unlike virtually every other President, Trump has no concern for his legacy. He lives only for the moment, never considering how history will view his reign. As with most users, Trump craves Twitter because he needs the immediate gratification it provides when attacking his perceived enemies and the ego boost he receives when readers view his tweets. I doubt we will ever have another President as incompetent, psychologically troubled and delusional as Trump.
4
Imagine how thrilling (empowering!) it must be to have a message from The President of the United States EVERY DAY, right there on your own phone!! He even gets up early to start your thoughts for the day, and your conversations with coworkers and friends,,,and keeps it short and simple, and angry, like on Fox. How exciting! He's a star!! Who will he fire next? Let's go see him stick it to the man when he flies-in out here...do anything he asks!!!
4
Leaders at this level should not be using Twitter (or any social media) at all -- at least, it needs to be kept to a controlled minimum. And Twitter, of all platforms, is an ineffectual method of communicating the nuances and complexities of, say, foreign policy, and the decisions that go into it. There are no revelations of "making the sausage" here. There are only revelations of a dilettante who is incapable of escaping the egomaniacal, filthy miasma swirling within the space between his ears.
2
Au contraire, the subtext is what Trump’s minions do while we’re distracted by the twit’s sleight-of-hand tweets. There are plenty of pigs being slaughtered and sausage made while we pay attention to the wrong things.
18
Without Twitter, "could the president do his job at all?" Good question, but can he do it WITH Twitter?
Ms. Swisher writes that "tens of thousands of government employees [are now] without a paycheck." Make that hundreds of thousands.
6
Not one sentence about regulation of social media? Swisher appears to be in the tank with social media moguls.
You almost wonder if her column could have been reduced to 240 characters.
4
Just a bunch of good reasons that I will never be on "Twitter." Who on earth would want Don Trump's awful comments and lies constantly pushed at them? Sick, really.
2
One thing that’s difficult to try and conceptualize, his Presidential Library. It might fit in magazine rack at a 7-11.
9
Very cute, Kara. Thank you!
1
There’s got to be some hackers out there, be they American, Russian, Chinese or North Korean, who can do us all a favor and hack Trump’s account or, better yet, shut down Twitter entirely. The world will do just fine, and probably better, without it. Tweeting is for the birds.
7
Twitter’s 280 character limit is perhaps more essential to the Trump Presidency than his family or coterie of court flatterers. It gives him the luxury of punching out his bilious, ignorant blather without straying too far into boredom or irrationality.
1
Twitter fiddles while America burns, content to turn a blind eye to the malign use of its platform by a petulant, bullying narcissist who spews hatred and lies with his every rambling utterance. If Twitter had even a modicum of concern for the best interests of this nation, they would have used the discretion they have to suspend Trump's account. But, like Facebook, the company cares more about it's own profits than the country's welfare. Historians will not overlook Twitter's shameless negligence. #NoDecency
3
All of his tweets are just more evidence of the collusion and abdication of the GOP in protecting the Constitution. They are a menace to the country and should be dealt with as a terrorist organization. Shutting down the government, encouraging riots, undermining allies, supporting foes.What would you call them?
3
“There is one positive way of looking at this whole situation: The smoky back rooms are all gone now.... There are no secrets, no side deals in the shadows, no quiet signaling. Instead, it is all text and no subtext”.
No. Trump’s tweets are all smoke, a digital shell game. When he tweeted about removing troops from Syria because ISIS has been defeated, he was lying. When he tweeted that Mattis was retiring, he was lying. Certainly his lies are transparent, at least to anyone paying attention, but his entire MO is side deals in the shadows.
3
Dear Leader complains about what the media says about him. That's nothing compared to what future historians are going to be saying about him.
1
Kara,
In response to your final question...
Who says he's doing it now?
It's not for nothing that the Current Occupant is frequently compared to President Comacho.
You read my mind. Thanks for a wonderful article. I have been feeling like the country has been reduced to high school drama with constant Twitter storm from the WH. Days of President standing at the podium and having a press conference is gone. Even when that happens, it is merely an opportunity for the president to hurl accusations of fake news. What bothers me s not seeing the nuts and bolts of how Trump's mind works. What worries me is how many people believes his constant lies. When they know what Trump tweets is a lie, they rationalize that one should not always believe what he says because he means well. Doesn't that sound like an enabling parent who fails to see that their child is an obnoxious brat?
1
I wish trump's tweets could just go unreported!
I used to pray that Twitter would throw him off their platform. But then I thought - all he would have left is the nuclear button...
2
Here's a thought... the back and forth, impulse-driven use of twitter is a reward in and of itself...what could happen if NO ONE RESPONDED?
2
If your sausage imagery doesn't turn everyone into a vegetarian/vegan, nothing will.
1
He can not do his job with or without Twitter.
He's not "doing his job" now.
2
Could he do his job (without twitter)?
Is he doing his job with twitter?
1
What is astonishing is that despite all this, TWTR is unable to translate the opportunity into financial success. Since its IPO, its stock is down 60% (while the Dow is up 43%) and the company's best bet appears to be an acquisition by a member of the FANNG.
Sad.
If Twitter expelled him, it would be a serious candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. No, I’m not kidding.
308
@Natural Historian, if that is even a possibility you are hoping for, I can either sell you a shiny Golden Gate bridge off San Francisco or shares in a Bitcoin mine in the Sierras powered by free electricity. Both big money makers, operators are standing by, call now!
Trump is the best thing that happened to Twitter from sinking into irrelevancy. He might have even helped them make a profit. There will howling, wailing and crying in grief at Twitter HQ when Trump leaves the White House.
3
@Gary Valan
So cynical, yet so true.
8
The Real Story behind Trump's Syrian decision had nothing to do with Twitter it was a phone call. Trump called President Erdogan of Turkey last week because Erdogan threatened to attack the Kurds.
But wvith Real Story was revealed today by the AP 's Suasan Frasier who reported from Ankara that in June there was a meeting in the Kurdish-administered Syrian town of Manbij. There the US, Turkey and the Kurds agreed on how to proceed against ISIS in Syria. The U.S. would, along with the Kurds, withdraw their troops while simultaneously 15,000 Turkish-trained Syrian opposition forces along with Turkish troops would replace them. But according to state-run Anadalu Agency "The U.S. was dragging its feet and Erdogan threatened to initiate a new offensive against the Kurds."
This prompted the phone call. So, as Paul Harvey would say, "That's the rest of the story."
And it appears that the President and Bolton knew what they were doing. Either Mattis disagreed or wasn't part of the discussion? The objective was to relieve both the US and Kurdish warriors who did such a hard but sterling job reducing ISIS 's land to 1% - with fresh and significant numbers of fighters to finish the job. Smart.
So now we know.
@Frank Leibold
This is the story from AP. It contradicts your post:
https://apnews.com/ec2ed217357048ff998225a31534df12?utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP
6
@Frank Leibold - Read that story again. You have the facts all wrong.
2
The Real Story about Trump's Syrian decision had nothing to do about Twitter it was a phone call. Trump called President Erdogan of Turkey last week because Erdogan threatened to attack the Kurds.
But the real story was revealed today by the AP 's Suasan Frasier who reported that in June there was a meeting in Kurdish-administered Syrian town of Manbij. There the US, Turkey and the Kurds agreed on how to proceed against ISIS in Syria. The U.S. would along with the Kurds withdraw their troops while simultaneously 15,000 Turkish-trained Syrian opposition forces along with Turkish troops would replace them. But according to state-run Anadalu Agency reported "The U.S. was dragging its feet and Erdogan threatened to initiate a new offensive against the Kurds."
This prompted the phone call. So, as Paul Harvey would say, "That's the rest of the story."
And it appears that the President and Bolton knew what they were doing. Either Mattis disagreed or wasn't part of the discussion? The objective was to relieve both the US and Kurdish warriors who did a sterling job reducing ISIS 's land to 1% with fresh and significant numbers of fighters to finish the job. Smart.
So now we know.
1
@Frank Leibold
A quick web search of your claims reveals that either you are falsely reporting on the story, or do not understand what the AP’s story outlined in detail: that Trump acted impulsively, without any forethought for his consequences.
So now we know.
5
Confession, I am motivated to respond in part with the hope that Kara will read my comment! I'm a fan and value her reporting and podcasts on the tech industry. As I see it, Facebook is destroying democracy and civil (or even rational) discourse at the level of the individual voter and Twitter is taking on the same task at the highest levels. There is no app for building democracy, only ruining it. Whatever is next in tech, can we restrain our gullibility in seeing it as a path to some utopian future? As far back as the 90s there was research from computer supported collaborative work (CSCW) on the inability of technology to support establishing trust and effective communication, but nobody listened. As Ms. Swisher once said, the silicon valley guys never took a humanities course (perhaps a focus on civics, sociology and psychology would be best - hey you can take these online for free!). Add to that congress members who can't do the most basic homework to understand the difference between an iPhone and Android and the recipe is for much worse to come. I say let's expect the worst and imagine dystopia, not utopia, and see if that helps. Cynicism - it's a good thing.
12
I recall reading that with the advent of radio, successful pols adopted that medium with a fireside folksy - people loved it. With the advent of television, people tended to elect the telegenic. Perhaps he is successful because he is able to harness this next communication tool. Can you image wanting to read Hilary in tweets?
1
~What will the historians of the future learn from the past week in Donald Trump’s Twitter feed?~
That the people of the 21st century did not believe in education.
51
No one wants open borders and all members of congress want border security. Trumps's tweets and antics have forced Sen. Schumer into the ridiculous posture that boasts Trump must abandon the wall because he will never get funding.
Trump does not mind looking foolish or extreme as long as he can get the other guy to eventually look worse. He has approached Senate Majority Leader Schumer in the same way he approached Kim Jong-Un of North Korea.The partial shut-down is less important than the abandonment of the Dreamers which are held hostage by the stalemate.
Trump won't blink because he can switch to the middle east and prove he is a man of peace and security. Democrats under Schumer are simply obstructionists. The new Democrats in the House may want to play the game differently. Some may actually vote according to their conscience.
2
We have the equivalent of an angry child with a pack of matches running loose in fireworks factory. Twitter is the match.
16
I’m surprised more is not talked about the Trump/TWTR relationship. TWTR is certainly his most powerful weapon. Also, before Trump, TWTR as a business was hanging on by a thread. Where would each be without each other?
1
No, Trump could not do his job at all without Twitter. But the job he is doing is not the job of President, which is a job he never wanted. He simply continues the same job he has always had, that is, grifter, thief, provocateur, and tabloid celebrity. He just does it now with the trappings of the oval office.
Fulfilling the actual duties of the presidency barely requires a Twitter account. However, continuing the Trump con on the entire world would be impossible without it.
25
Those who wrote the Constitution could never predict the advent of Twitter or a person the calibre of Trump with the title of President to abuse, humiliate or announce fly by night decisions instantly. . Had they thought this was a possibility they would have made it much less complicated for their removal. The constant and persistent viciousness or the opposite the grandiose vision of himself is dangerous, frightening and confirms he lacks the capacity to function on any scale as President. It is long overdue, he needs to be pressured into resigning and take his sidekick Pence along with him.
2
Yet another oh-ain't-Trump-awful column in the Times. It's good to know he's incompetent, but maybe at least someone in the media should write about how to prevent his recurrence.
Trump got where he is because the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision handed our government over to a few billionaires.
16
Twitter is a purely reactive technology. It's not meant for context. It unleashes the "ready, fire, aim" mentality for many, not only Trump. It's the ultimate sound bite tool.
One difference is that some users realize, albeit belatedly, that their tweets may have been wrong or offensive. Trump, on the other hand, never fact checks, and certainly never apologizes. Twitter is his attack dog, one which leaves good team constantly in the position of having to interpret, justify, or walk back.
Twitter is a fine example of the law of unintended consequences. What could be a tool of rapid response and feedback has devolved into an electronic bully pulpit. I don't know how to do it but Twitter must be banned as a medium of governance, which should be based on considered decision making. It's now a tool for cowardly processes of communication of policy, criticism, and employment status.
Trump is the petulant child who sulks aloud via his unsecured phone. He'll only understand if his privileges to use that phone are taken away.
4
When it comes to running the gvt. and understanding what is happening in the world Twitter is for twits.
Those pushing ideas for good or ill use the platform to influence and persuade people who are emotional, perhaps not well informed or trying to get noticed. But hey, it makes money and it is a useful tool for product adds, politicians, hostile governments and others bad actors who have an agenda.
I have been riding the wave of technology since 1966 when the military trained me in electronics. I was a proud owner of a 8k TRS 80 Color Computer in the 70s. Point being I am not a Luddite by any measure; however, I have never embraced social media because one does not have to be a deep thinker to understand the dark side of unregulated social media platforms in the hands of those who wish to move the masses to make money or realign the world order. #let_the twits_tweet
6
America prefers entertainment to government. Thus, Donald Trump, the PT Barnum of Presidents.
3
If you tweet it, it must be true, must think Trump.
I abandoned Twitter in 2016 after the election. Yes, Trump has a lot of followers, but most of the people who were commenting on his tweets back then didn’t like him. It was filled with proof of just how ignorant people thought he was. Does anyone know if the same still holds true, or are the responses now filled with praise and defense?
1
"Could he do his job at all?"
It doesn't appear that he is doing his job, unless that job is further destroying the country. In that case, it's heckuva job, Brownie, all the way.
1
He is not doing his job using twitter. In fact, rather than write an article that again takes a superficial look at Trump and his personal use of twitter, a better use of your time would have been an analysis of the effect of policy making in 240 characters (or whatever inane limit it is now).
By the way, according to their own policies, Trump should have been kicked off twitter already.
2
As a 29 year old millennial who loves Twitter and uses it quite frequently, I cannot imagine a world in which I used it the way he does - an open door to his sad, vicious, and paranoid mind for all to see.
15
Trump has effectively worked around the mainstream media by ranting to his supporters directly and training them to believe only his version of ..News ! He has fairly successfully overcome ...at least for quite some time anyway..the mainstream media's portrayal of ...as attorneys say...The Facts Of This Case !! He has twisted the Truth so frequently that it's difficult to remember it all. This distortion of Truth has been going on since the Primaries ! Who among us really believed it was ..All Locker Room Talk? Many of us apparently! You can't argue with his success! It sometimes seems as though his tactic is as a child who makes such a fuss that the parents.. though well meaning.. just give up and give in to the childs demands because they are simply worn out! The danger is our becoming numb to all this chaos ! Public outcry is all that works. There are too many of us Gullible Americans who are easily swayed by The Fox and his Friends etc. Hopefully there are more of us who can come forward and stand up for what's right...the TRUTH than those who have chosen to believe Lies ! We cannot afford to be a ..Silent Majority !! We can't Resign ...we have to speak out ...Now...and Always !!
4
Historians will probably call this the Age of Snark, where the country's leaders engage in vaudevillian one liners to drive us into the ground. It is very gratifying to shout out our base response to events. I curse at the tv daily.
It's irresponible and foolish to expect that those snarky taunts and outrageous insults do anything more than divide us.
Theres an article on Grace on this site. Read that and turn of the twitter account.
2
Trump's tweets are not how the sausage gets made. I've seen the sausage maker at work and Trump isn't it. He's more like an evil version of the comedian Gallagher. Twitter is the cartoonishly large mallet he uses to smash things.
I'm actually surprised Twitter hasn't cut him loose already. Either they fear retaliation or the increased user traffic is too hard to resist. Probably both. I'd blame profits but Twitter doesn't make any money anyway.
Either way, historians certainly have their work cut out for them. Trump's tweets are both moronically meaningless and yet vastly influential at the same time. That's a contextual paradox if ever I saw one.
We have to study gibberish in order to piece together a coherent picture of the world. The situation feels very much like something out of Lewis Carroll. Running as fast as we can just to stay in place so to speak.
4
*So what would happen to the president who governs by tweet if he finally did or said something that forced Twitter to throw him off the platform? Could he do his job at all?*
My opinion - he isnt doing his job at all WITH Twitter.
4
I would be happy if his Twitter account was removed.
I do not want to hear about the entire sausage path and I really don't want to have to listen to someone try to explain how wonderful it is.
2
What all the pundits and media commentators miss is that slowly DT is eliminating WH personnel so that what's left is DT. He's been using Twitter as an end run around accountability and constraints by the Constitution. In short, he's using Twitter to dictate. In his mind, he's dictator. He consults no cabinet or government officials. Not even Congress unless he wants a photo op. DT thinks he's a dictator and he's making it happen.
4
My understanding is that Twitter rules forbid using its platform to spout racism, so Trump’s account should have been taken down already, years ago.
4
"So what would happen to the president who governs by tweet if he finally did or said something that forced Twitter to throw him off the platform? Could he do his job at all?"
I think you hit the nail on the head earlier in your piece - Trump is "addicted" to Twitter (probably even on a physiologic basis). Like any addiction, it keeps people from doing their job properly (though his addiction is just one of many psychopathologies that keeps him from doing his job properly).
2
I fervently hope our next president doesn't tweet. Tweets are impulsive. The leaders of our nation should not be impulsive.
171
Historians of the future will debate: “With the whole world in witness, how was such madness tolerated?”
346
Because the vast majority of Americans were too busy working due to the intense greed of the one percent that kept them in subservience to truly understand the issues. The one percent supported legislators that stymied social programs to help Americans and keep them in deep despair. Then the one percent relied on right wing pundits to push outlandish racist theories to make the poverty stricken blame immigrants for their plight.
38
@JJ Corleone
I had frequently wondered that about the Julio-Claudian emperors until I watched this happening before my eyes. But in those days, you actually had to kill or exile senators to degrade the senatorial ranks enough to stop them doing the work of the republic.
16
@C Wolfe
Given the number of Republicans who have suddenly retired, I think the exile aspect is work quite well.
15
"So what would happen to the president who governs by tweet if he finally did or said something that forced Twitter to throw him off the platform? Could he do his job at all? "
Well, he doesn't do it with Twitter, so that's easy!
Great observations, superbly written.
21
Twitter and Fox are his only sources, with the exception perhaps of the Family. It is clear that he never read Mattis’s letter of resignation. Or if he did, he couldn’t take in sentences with more than seven words. Only when he learned from others that the letter was a “stinging rebuke”, did he heave Mattis out the door. Everything comes down, with the apprentice President, to ratings.
47
"What will the historians of the future learn from the past week in Donald Trump’s Twitter feed?"
More important, What are America's adversaries, real enemies, learning by the minute from Donaldo's Twitter feed?
There are two things of relevance to read in Donaldo's Tweets:
First, Donaldo is mentally unstable. Rather than unhinged, his "thinking" is hinged to what Fox, Coulter et al have to say/Tweet about him. In other words, Donaldo can be provoked into impetuous reactions to name calling and baiting. (Consider how his behavior on Twitter is read on the international scene. How some might choose to manipulate Donaldo ether by hacking Coulter's Twitter account, or simply feeding Fox some anti-democracy propaganda.)
Second, that the American government is unhinged. In other words, America is being governed by a Twitter feed from a mentally unstable Donaldo. And it's not just Donaldo's Tweets; it's the fact that his Republican controlled Congress lives in fear of Donaldo's Tweets. This past week we had a classic example. Republicans in the Senate and House could not govern, could not legislate, could not be patriots because they were intimidated by the whims of Donaldo and his capitalized Tweet tornadoes.
Historians of the future will have more pressing concerns than Donaldo's Tweets. The ultimate questions they will endeavor to answer: Why did so many Americans lose their way, become irrational, support Donaldo? How did the Republican Party become Russian-ized?
59
FDR understood he could engage the American people with a soft spoken, intimate conversation on radio, without stoically belting out a speech. Twitter is another evolution on that. Hopefully future presidents will act more responsibly with the medium.
5
Twitter, which structurally precludes expression of complex ideas, is a perfect match for Trump's shallowness.
74
The main characteristic of internet communication is to allow immunity to cowardness.
5
Ms. Swisher has hit on two important issues. First, that Trump has become addicted to Twitter. Although Trump famously does not drink, his obvious addiction to Twitter, in and of itself (beyond what he actually says in his Tweets), is a clear sign that he has mental health issues, no different than those who have disorders that manifest themselves in excessive gambling, shopping, eating, drinking, drugs, etc. The second intriguing aspect of her column is this: What if the folks at Twitter simply kicked him off? The commonly-held belief was that the generals and other sensible members of the Cabinet might save us from Trump's Nero-like behavior. But with all of them gone, maybe the only hope we now have is that the private sector, i.e., the people who run Twitter, might be our only hope to save the country (and the world) from Trump's madness. Twitter literally is being used by Trump as a weapon of mass destruction. The owners of Twitter need to step up to save civilization as we know it -- and that is not being overly-dramatic.
17
I can only imagine the future Frontline episode that dissects the Trump Presidency and the incredible damage he has done to the country. Elected in a perfect political storm, Trump had undermined our national security and our standing on the world stage.
If he were a paid Soviet agent, he could not do more damage to our Democracy. When history is written about this time in our nation, the large question will be why he wasn't impeached by a failed Congress that has turned to look the other way for political convenience.
For shame.
34
@Len
He very well may be a paid Soviet agent!
5
Kara, he's not doing his job now but you're correct is asking what he would do or be without Twitter.
His presidency is so discombobulated now that any action he takes is seen as lunacy unfolding. It puts a burden on a Congress that has also tanked.
2019 will be interesting to say the least.
3
Priority; Congress needs to pass binding legislation making the use of the tweet, any social media, NOT a means to announce official Govt policy. Period.
Never thought the need would arise, but like many things, Trump has proven that common sense, norms, traditions, and even laws are meaningless.
Establish an official means by which policy is formed, turned into legible words and phrases, then first announced to the vested parties (who should have already been in the room) and then the public. Never at the same time.
The other day, my brother and I were joking about the notion of the Trump Presidential Library, Golf Course and Casino. (focus on golf and gambling over the library aspects)
What would it look like? Gaudy, lots of fake gold-overlay, cheap reproductions of classic designs, some modern, but assembly required. And lots and lots of images of him...with that odd-grin. Of course the faux magazine covers.
But more laughable was; what would the library content be? A scattering of screens with all his tweets? Multiple shelves with "The Art of the Deal". (for sale!) Its audio version (also for sale!) on constant loop over the sound system. Interrupted only by his incredible oratory masterpieces from the campaign and current Applause Tour rants and raves.
No journals. No drafts of legislation. No copies of speech drafts, with his revisions and comments all over them.
Would there be intimate, but not creepy, personal pictures? I've never seen a non creepy one.
32
POTUS use of Twitter is born out of the daily and steady criticisms coming from ALL the MSM. It's a way to bypass them and their acolytes. Trump didn't use it before in his real estate career. Most have not even reported that. I wonder why?
The AP reported today that the U.S. and Turkey had reached an agreement in June that when the Americans pull out of Syria the 15,000 Syrian-Turkish trained fighters would replace them AND returning Kurdish forces to finish the battle against ISIS. This explains the recent "created malestrom" of negative publicity directed towards the President.
I wonder why Mattis didn't support this? Perhaps he thought strategically we needed a physical presence to be at the table should there be any resolution talks?
1
@Frank Leibold
Trump is a hot mess. It’s not the fault of the MSM, Nancy Pelosi or the Democrats. I don’t know why Republicans can never take responsibility for anything they do - but in that trait, Donald Trump is assuredly their obvious leader. He never takes responsibility.
It’s seems you want the media to ‘report’ that this is the ‘best economy’, that ISIS is defeated, that Trump had the most people at his inauguration, that ‘hoards of dangerous people are attacking’ our southern border, that Trump has accomplished more than any other President in his first 2 years, that he won the largest electoral college victory ...
Those are all things Trump’s tweets have claimed - except none are true. It truly would be ‘fake news’ - the purview of the Fox News crowd.
Trump lies. Anyone who believes him comes to regret it or is a fool.
2
@Frank Leibold
Twitter was created in 2008, long after his real estate “career”. . .
I am reminded of the time I took my then four-year-old nephew to an aviary. A mynah bird caught the boy's attention by saying hello and my nephew, amazed to meet a talking bird, attempted to start a conversation with it. The mynah kept repeating the same phrase, which increasingly frustrated my nephew who, exasperated, finally said, "Now listen to me bird." It seems to me that Trump is like the mynah bird; we are like my nephew. In discussions of Trump's verbally challenged communications I have yet to hear the word "perseveration" used. I wonder if a mental health professional could comment on whether the president's tweets fit the description of that kind of communication.
11
@Joe Thank you, that’s a wonderful anecdote, and a great - and seriously underrated - comment overall.
I hope more people read it eventually.
5
Government is being run via 250 words or less via Twitter.
Thus might be the Trump's only contribution to Washington's
politics.
1
Love the congressman who is waiting for Trump's tweet. Why doesn't he just do what his district wants him to do?
62
@Jeff L
Perhaps think for himself what is best for the country?
5
Is the medium perfect for this president because his messages are so shallow as to fit within the character limit? Or has the medium forced the messages to become even more shallow?
1
No one is demanding that you read his tweets. In fact we’d all be better off ignoring him, so that when a Trump falls in the forest it doesn’t make a sound.
5
I recall an ad by AT&T (remember MaBell from the days of yore?) that encouraged us to make phone calls with the tag line "Talk is Cheap."
They were, of course, emphasizing the low price of making a long distance (what a quaint phrase) call. But who knew that Twitter would make talk real cheap, as in drivel or worthless or meaningless.
And so it is today when "Nothing is left unsaid, even if nothing that’s being said means much at all."
Talk has truly become cheap; not inexpensive but just worthless.
2
Ms. Swisher,
Thank you for this perspective, though I don't think you took your sausage metaphor quite far enough. After all, what are we finally left with once said sausage has been eaten? Yea, that's all Trump ever leaves us.
7
One lesson future historians will learn is that President Trump perfectly represents our consumer age. His short tweets and endless repetition of slogans like "no collusion" perfectly mirror advertising techniques and the sales pitches he's used his whole life. And like advertising, his tweets are mostly lies, often relying on fear and insecurity to get people to "buy" what he wants them to.
7
I’m sorry, did Ms. Swisher just call Coulter’s shrieking “deft manipulation?” Coulter’s no more subtle than Trump is. That Trump changed back to his earlier hardline position on his wall isn’t surprising. It doesn’t take much of a push to get Trump to do the wrong thing.
4
Subtext implies that there was a thought, a little deeper analysis, something more beyond the initial statement.
That's where the problem lies. With Trump you don't have any underpinnings...just the first (and usually only) thought that comes to mind.
1
Trump and the Republican controlled congress are and will continue to be extreme control hounds. One for all, as long as it maintains or gains control. The tweet has become a control device because Trump has been allowed to use it indiscriminately. It's not the tweets, it's the people like Trump and the Russians that use it to pillage our country. We simply have the wrong people in power and hopefully that will change in January.
2
This line says it all "his colleagues were waiting for a tweet from Mr. Trump to tell them how to vote ." Congress has abdicated their responsibilities in governing this nation. Once they enabled the governing by tweet method, they stopped doing their jobs. Congress, think for yourselves and go back to doing your jobs.
35
"Could he do his job at all?" Yes, maybe better. The Twitter platform by nature is a megaphone for the established voice. If any of us meer users were to tweet that he is gutless none would notice.
Twitter has created a new ruling class, let's call it a Celebretocracy. At the same time, for some, it has also become an new form of addiction.
4
The sausage metaphor just terrific -- as you wrote it --- from beginning to , ahem, end. Twitter is perfect for this chaotic man who is must have some diagnosis of ADD or is simply, in the centuries before such diagnoses were common, a manic man who continues with his own behavior to demean the office he holds.
14
He can’t do his job at present. Twitter is just one of the ways that fact is made apparent.
For a true portrait of master communicators, read Leadership in Troubled Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It’s a rousing reminder that great American leaders have emerged in dire circumstances before. They knew when to hold their tongue, and when to let their words fly.
Our current leader is beyond redemption. He lacks nuance and grace. He has no sense of timing or wit. He’s a scourge, but he will pass. I fear it will take a new disaster for a true leader to emerge again.
Obama’s eloquence and wisdom are sorely missed. It’s important to remember the dire circumstances in our country that gave rise to his administration. I hope it doesn’t have to get that bad again for his like to capture the country’s vote. But deep down I know it will.
57
Twitter is not a "direct line to, well, everyone..." I'm not a subscriber. Reading all the hoo-ha flying back and forth in Twitter seems like a waste of time, so I don't ever plan to subscribe. And I wish the news would stop quoting from Twitter, since tweets are directed at followers, not at everyone, and we who are not subscribers probably don't want to listen in.
103
@R. Adelman I completely agree. I, too, wish the media would quit quoting Twitter. Not all of us wish to hang on every word people say. Some of us would like to know what else is going on in the world and what we are missing in the tweet fog.
12
@Anita If I wanted to read Mr. Trump's tweets, I'd join Twitter and become a member of the fan club. Unless he posts "I've decided to start another world war," ix-nax on the eat-tways, please.
3
@R. Adelman... ix-nay, that is.
1
It’s the “no secrets” part that is wrong.
Putting out shiny tweets may look like the full reveal, but tweets are just the cover and only the smokescreen. The real stuff is hidden.
Mr. M may know more than we do, and maybe the FBI does also, but they ain’t telling so far, so the tweet-flow continues.
31
Trump's use of Twitter "is what it is" as they say. The better question now is how future presidents will use the medium. Will they return to the occasional bumper-sticker encouragements in times of upset or words of praise for some retiring sports hero, etc. Or will they use the character-limited tweet to announce new policies and executive decisions.
Is the American attention span to be permanently reduced to 10 second mind-bites flowing through their phones? Is that how "informed voters" will become informed?
17
@Tim C Why are you asking that question using the future tense? As far as I can tell, that's exactly how trump followers are 'informing' themselves.
12
@Terry
True, but unfortunately not only Trump followers.
3
@Tim C
I'm going to predict that, after Trump, the revulsion will be so complete and widespread that NO serious president or candidate will use Twitter ever again.
5
Thanks to Twitter we have a real-time portal into the workings of the mind of a psychopath. And he is putting on quite a show. (Still working on the proper term for the 56.3 million. That is a truly frightening number.)
134
Add to the 56 million the hundreds of millions around the world who obsessively watch his every twitch and hear every word on cable and streaming news services. Not all are supporters. Many are opponents. And many are attracted to the spectacle like people look at car crashes, violent sports, and horror movies.
6
Many are bots.
5
@Michael
I seriously doubt there are 56.3 million Trump supporters.
How is that being calculated today? You know 2 years after the election.
5
Such a special moment for everyday us; we’re seeing much of what the state grand juries (soon to indict Trump) are seeing.
77
"... by tweeting and retweeting so rapidly that it’s like watching a hostage trying to send desperate Morse code messages with his blinks before the video camera turns off."
This has to be one of the best lines I've read in the Trump era. Running a close second is this: "Nothing is left unsaid, even if nothing that’s being said means much at all."
Simply brilliant. At least something is working these days, and it's the resilience and quantity of sound reporting that lets us see almost too much of the shenanigans in this White House.
There's only one thing that bothers me about this article, and it's the subheading in the title of this, starting with "what will historians of the future."
To heck with the future! This is now, it's scary, it's unorthodox, and it's just plain unnerving that the president tells us the inner workings of his runaway mind.
Frankly I want less, not more, of the president's musings. I also want a grownup in the White House not an aging, often abusive teenager on his phone tweeting the night (and morning)
away.
Voters handed the car keys to an underage driver---is it any wonder his reckless driving might lead to the "carnage" he vowed to stop?
273
@ChristineMcM "What will the historians of the future learn from the past week in Donald Trump’s Twitter feed?" The answer depends on who the "winners" are in this battle for the survival of western democracy. Assuming that there actually will be clear eyed historians if Trumpism (and Putinism, Erdoganism, Duerteism etc) wins, is a shaky assumption at this time. Even if Trumpism is defeated there will, as always, be a good amount of truth bending and myth making that elevate the 'good guys', demonize the 'bad guys', consign them to the proverbial dustbin of history and minimize the egregious acts visited on innocent bystanders in the pursuit of victory. Sadly, few if any history books are widely read and history is taught to a fairly small portion of the population. "Never forget" is a perennial slogan for those who live through/survive the events at hand, but future generations do forget as history repeats itself.
36
@ChristineMcM - "Nothing is left unsaid, even if nothing that’s being said means much at all."
It's almost Taoist, in a profane sort of way:
"Less and less is done
Until non-action is achieved.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone."
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@sleepdoc
@sleepdoc: You are correct, sadly. Well before Twitter, social media, any lightening fast digital communication, the North -- the Civil War's military victors -- lost the war as the South immediately began to write their own mythic tales of honor against Yankee invasion and defense of their allegedly gracious manner and peculiar economy, while elevating states' rights (to slavery!) to the level of hagiography. We have yet to confront that fictional history, dictated by the post-Confederacy and are a sorrier nation for being blind to it.
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Even when considering the amplification of his Trump’s Twitter is a direct line to a small percentage of the actual national or global population, albeit one overly represented among pundits, media, and decision-makers.
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What I want to think about is what would happen IF twitter turned off his account. Can there possibly be some legal action? Would a "right wing twitter" emerge (not so easy!) Or illegal behind the scenes coercion? What are his options if that happened?
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@Pito Salas
I think it's important while Trump is in office that he tweet as much as he likes. We are seeing an already fragile mind become more and more deranged — in real time.
However, if he is convicted and/or impeached for his crimes and incompetence it will be essential to silence the tweeter. Let him write a book himself if he needs to rant. His tweeting post convictions will inflame a lot of hate and crime. He lies and some poor folk believe him. He would love to become a martyr. He is a tweeter terrorist. I hope it all ends soon.
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@Pito Salas I just asked my wife the same thing. She said Trump would just get someone else to Tweet for him.
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@Pito Salas Twitter would never cut him off. It's feeding their coffers!
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'' There is one positive way of looking at this whole situation: The smoky back rooms are all gone now, making way for a 24-hour feed that chronicles every bit of the action under klieg lights. '' - No.
What is required is Democracy to be shown to the public in all of its glory, and not in 140 characters at a time. (low tech if you will) What that means is that Congress is soon going to revert back to regular order. (the Senate and White House to follow in 2 years time)
That will mean rigorous debate, and straight up and down votes (that is only way Speaker Pelosi/Democrats know how to operate). so that all can see exactly where everyone stands.
If you want to tweet about that, feel free.
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I agree. Unfortunately, as we have seen with the Mueller investigations, there is an awful lot that has already happened with Trump and his relationships with Putin and Saudi Arabia in “smoky back rooms,” that Trump has been hiding, and continues to hide.
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A fortuitous upside to all the president's tweets? Though he does not seem to grok it, the twitter record is a standalone, clear trail of evidence for Mueller's obstruction of justice investigation.
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@steveyo
Good point.
Gives new meaning to a paper trail.
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"Could he do his job at all" if he got thrown off of Twitter? Come now. This assumes he's actually been doing his job.
indeed, the prodigious turnover for which the Trump White House has become (in)famous is now coming to apply to the top position itself: President Coulter is taking over.
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No, he could do no more. Nor can he do his job now -- tweets or no tweets. Most importantly, will our system of checks and balances work?
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@Larry Yates
It isn't working now, obviously - and the courts are being stuffed as we speak, to ensure that it won't.
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Me thinks Twitter is a modern version of containment, the George Keenan strategy for dealing with the post war CCCP, except that it doesn’t contain much at all yet, least of all this prez. But it could. With a little judicious regulation of social media, tRUMP (call it a caps lock accident) could find himself penned in with his 38 percent.
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