The tweeter-in-chief
If you keep tabs on President Donald Trump’s schoolyard scuffles, you noticed the recent Twitter punches he threw at CNN and Time magazine. He taunted them, and they responded.
Trump’s attack on CNN was a familiar version of his mocking “fake news” chant.
His Time tweet, about its Person of the Year honor, was bizarre. He won the distinction last year but seemed worried he may not repeat in 2017. So he tried to remove himself from the running by claiming—falsely—that the magazine told him he’d “probably” win the title again if he agreed to an interview and photo shoot. “I said probably is no good and took a pass.” A few days later, Trump made a culturally insensitive remark about Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
How to deal with this president’s absurd outbursts?
We shake our heads in dismay at Trump’s petty rants and bombast, then take a deep breath because we’re determined to keep perspective: Most of the shocking stuff he spews has no lasting impact. It dissipates with the news cycle, to be followed soon enough by another distracting comment. Almost a year into his term, we are accustomed to Trump’s aberrant behavior. The president is strategically dyspeptic and won’t change.
Trump often sounds unhinged, especially on Twitter. Yet he doesn’t insult or tilt randomly at the heavens. He targets people and institutions who defy him. In this way, he may not be so different in spirit than previous thin-skinned presidents. Lyndon Johnson could be a bully. Richard Nixon kept an enemies list.
What’s unique about Trump is he has access to social media, and no emotional filter. Nixon kept his list of opponents private. Trump lets them have it via Twitter or snide comments. He wreaks havoc to keep rivals off-balance. He’s a serial chain-jerker who has a knack for the punchy prose of tweets. He probably could have been a great tabloid newspaper editor.
This a lecture Trump won’t heed. So be it. Let’s recognize his motives and not obsess over his cynical behavior as if he’s devaluing the office of the presidency. He isn’t. He is devaluing himself.
We will continue to call out the president for his behavior, while focusing on whether he does the job he was elected to do: to help grow America’s economy, to promote peace, to strengthen national security, to fix health care and so on. Most of Trump’s outbursts are expressions of his shortcomings that occur on the margins of his responsibilities as leader. As long as that’s where they stay, the country will be OK.