Now if somebody can’t handle a Twitter account
Ben Guarino at the Washington Post looks back on Trump’s Twitter career.
Of all the loose cannons to roll across political Twitter’s decks, Donald Trump may have been the most volatile. The GOP nominee blasted his messages into the feeds of 13 million followers and accrued retweets by the thousands. For every hit scored against Jeb Bush (“low energy“), Ted Cruz (“Lyin’“) or Hillary Clinton (“Crooked“), though, there remained a risk Trump’s potshots would be self-destructive rather than tactical.
In the past, Trump’s worst tweets included the ludicrous, like his claim that climate change was a Chinese hoax, as well as the insulting and unsubtle. “While @BetteMidler is an extremely unattractive woman,” Trump tweeted in 2012, “I refuse to say that because I always insist on being politically correct.” He remained an impulsive tweeter well into his presidential campaign. On Sept. 30, he unleashed a series of tweets in the dead of morning, exhorting supporters to “check out sex tape” of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado.
Because that’s what presidents do – publicly attack women with whatever disgusting lies pop into their heads.
An analysis by data scientist David Robinson may shed some light into the nature of Trump’s tweets. In August, Robinson quantified the difference in tweets sent from Trump’s account, depending on the source — whether they came from Twitter for Android or Twitter for iPhone. Robinson concluded that the Android tweets were “more hyperbolic and aggressive” whereas the iPhone tweets were closer to traditional campaign messages.
(A program like TweetDeck specifies the origin of tweets by operating system.)
Robinson hypothesized that Trump, who had been documented in the past checking Twitter using a Samsung Galaxy phone and expressing a distaste for Apple, issued the Android tweets. The iPhone tweets, lacking the emotional charge, were dictated to or written by staffers.
This all reminds me of something…I wonder what it could be…
President Obama, campaigning for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in Florida, did not pass up the chance to get in a few digs at Trump on Sunday.
Apparently his campaign has taken away his Twitter.
In the last two days, they had so little confidence in his self-control, that they said ‘We’re just going to take away your Twitter
…. Now if somebody can’t handle a Twitter account, they can’t handle the nuclear codes. If somebody starts tweeting at 3 in the morning because SNL made fun of you, then you can’t handle the nuclear codes.
Here he is saying it.
You’d think this would be obvious to any grown up living in the 21st century, wouldn’t you?
You’d think.
Yes you would.
The problem is, there apparently aren’t as many grown ups as we thought. There are people who look grown up, who have the right to drink, to vote, to drive, and to raise a family, that are actually juveniles on the schoolyard, taunting the kids they don’t like and blaming it on the ones they beat up.
We are a nation of adolescent schoolyard bullies.
To all my American friends, especially those here obviously, all the best for tomorrow and the days that follow.
I just had a dark thought that if we had the same kind of political system as the USA Nigel Farage would be in with a chance of being President of the UK.
I am thankful for the Parliamentary system which has produced its bad/lame Prime Ministers but no-one as malevolent as that.
KB Player: give Theresa May a chance before you claim that…
Thank you Rob.
I’ve calmed down a bit after reading how confident the newspapers are that Trump will lose – even the LA Times, which is not a fan of HC.
Usually general elections are not a huge deal for us in the UK. Five years of this lot or the other lot. But we have had game-changing votes in the last few years – the Scottish referendum, which nearly gave me a nervous breakdown; then the election to the Scottish parliament, which might usher in another referendum, so nerve-racking, then the Brexit which has affected people deeply and painfully one way or another. This American one has certainly got me scared, and I’ve seen how it’s affected my American social media friends. So may it swing the better way.
If somebody can’t handle a Twitter account, they can’t handle a toaster. Forget nukes.