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Keep Trump on Twitter. Each indefensible tweet is a reminder of the stakes this fall.
New column from NeverTrumper Tom Nichols at USA Today:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/06/01/trumps-tweets-made-presidency-now-revealing-failures-column/5299069002/
-snip-
But social media is now also helping to unmake his presidency, and this is all to the good. Whenever he tweets, he burdens his supporters with yet more indefensible remarks, like his macho posturing about sending the National Guard into Minneapolis to shoot rioters. It might be red meat to his base, but it is also a constant jolt of energy to the people who have decided he must be voted out of office.
-snip-
First, removing Trump from Twitter would not only play into his constant whining that the world is out to get him, it would also serve to confirm to millions of other people that Twitter is nothing but a liberal playground. And they would have a point. Yes, Twitter has every right to kick Trump off the platform, and were he not the president, they probably would have done so already. And Trump’s threats against Twitter are a reminder that he has no respect for the First Amendment. (Or the next couple of dozen after it, for that matter.)
But Trump’s account is, in fact, a subject of public interest. When the president of the United States speaks or writes, his words are policy. You may not like those words. They may be boorish, ignorant, ill-advised, or inflammatory. But they are coming from the head of the Article II branch of government, and it is better to have them in writing where we can all see them.
This leads to the second reason to leave Trump on Twitter. This is a president who does not read or write very much, if at all. This is not Ronald Reagan, penning entries by the hundreds into his diary, or George H.W. Bush dictating his thoughts onto a tape recorder for posterity. Trump’s Twitter account is the closest thing we’re going to have to a presidential record when he is gone, and there should be no way to whitewash that record by deleting it or cutting it short.
The fact that Trump’s tweets are policy and a record constitute a third, and crucial, reason for leaving his account active. Trump’s tweets undermine the ability of his own staff to dissemble and lie about what’s going on in the White House.
-snip-
But social media is now also helping to unmake his presidency, and this is all to the good. Whenever he tweets, he burdens his supporters with yet more indefensible remarks, like his macho posturing about sending the National Guard into Minneapolis to shoot rioters. It might be red meat to his base, but it is also a constant jolt of energy to the people who have decided he must be voted out of office.
-snip-
First, removing Trump from Twitter would not only play into his constant whining that the world is out to get him, it would also serve to confirm to millions of other people that Twitter is nothing but a liberal playground. And they would have a point. Yes, Twitter has every right to kick Trump off the platform, and were he not the president, they probably would have done so already. And Trump’s threats against Twitter are a reminder that he has no respect for the First Amendment. (Or the next couple of dozen after it, for that matter.)
But Trump’s account is, in fact, a subject of public interest. When the president of the United States speaks or writes, his words are policy. You may not like those words. They may be boorish, ignorant, ill-advised, or inflammatory. But they are coming from the head of the Article II branch of government, and it is better to have them in writing where we can all see them.
This leads to the second reason to leave Trump on Twitter. This is a president who does not read or write very much, if at all. This is not Ronald Reagan, penning entries by the hundreds into his diary, or George H.W. Bush dictating his thoughts onto a tape recorder for posterity. Trump’s Twitter account is the closest thing we’re going to have to a presidential record when he is gone, and there should be no way to whitewash that record by deleting it or cutting it short.
The fact that Trump’s tweets are policy and a record constitute a third, and crucial, reason for leaving his account active. Trump’s tweets undermine the ability of his own staff to dissemble and lie about what’s going on in the White House.
-snip-
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