Which came first: Donald Trump’s obsession with Twitter or the world’s obsession with Donald Trump’s Twitter feed?
It’s a bit of a chicken-egg scenario and more than a few commentators have suggested that the media would do well to simply ignore the President’s tantrums. Some folks have gone further than that, suggesting that somehow, America’s fascination with Trump’s tweets represents something wrong with the public.
That latter “criticism” is absurd for one very simple reason: Trump is the President. You cannot blame the media and/or the public for paying attention to what he says. This is one guilty pleasure that it is not incumbent upon the public to curb. Rather, it is incumbent upon the President to exercise restraint in what he says to the public.
The saving grace with this is that “there’s a tweet for that” has become “a thing” with Trump. For every new tweet, there’s an old tweet that lays bare the President’s hypocrisy or, more often, simply betrays his penchant for outright buffoonery.
Meanwhile, he undercuts his own agenda with every errant, angry 140-character bomblet. Yes, he also imperils world peace and undermines America’s reputation in the process, but if he “succeeds” in tweeting himself out of office before he tweets the world into armageddon, then Twitter could ironically prove to be our saving grace.
For those who want to amuse themselves for hours, there’s a searchable Trump tweet database here, but if you just want a fun visualization of who has come under fire since he’s been in office, Axios is happy to oblige with the following new graphic:
It’s worth noting (again) that Twitter was recently forced to respond to requests that Trump’s tweet about North Korea “not being around much longer” be removed. Recall this:
Yes, “newsworthiness” and “public interest” are among the factors at play when it comes to allowing the President to craft foreign policy in 140 characters.
Or perhaps the controlling factor is what Monness Crespi Hardt’s James Cakmak said back in August:
Donald Trump’s presence on Twitter’s social media platform probably doesn’t affect user and revenue growth for the company but the stock could potentially lose as much as $2 billion in market capitalization if the president quit tweeting.
You decide.
