Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Donald Trump’s dangerous Twitter game
If you want to pretend for a moment that our incoming president respects the office — or you — just follow his alter-ego @MatureTrumpTwts on Twitter.
PresidentialTrump is an “alternative parody account of how a mature, more presidential Trump should tweet.” A couple of examples: The real Trump tweeted this embarrassing message on Dec. 31: “Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what do. Love!” PresidentialTrump wrote what Trump should have tweeted: “Happy New Year to all, including my many opponents who fought hard for what they believe. May 2017 bring us unity, peace, harmony and love.”
The real Trump, in his war against America’s own intelligence agencies, tweeted on Wednesday: “Julian Assange said ‘a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta’ - why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!”
Presidential Trump wrote: “I will not be commenting about the hacks until I have heard the full intel briefing. It’s important to have the facts before weighing in.”
We don’t know who’s behind the @MatureTrumpTwts account, but is it too late to hand the White House keys over to that person?
Trump and incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer portray Twitter as a way for Trump to bypass “the mainstream media” and speak directly to the people. Trump hasn’t held a news conference since July. He postponed one in December and claims he will hold one on Wednesday. He’s hand-picked a couple of newspaper interviews but no televised Q&A for the world to see.
Trump’s loyalists are joyous that he’s ignoring the press. The world’s strongest leaders like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un don’t have to answer to the “biased media” and their silly questions about important issues. So why should Trump?
No, Twitter is Trump’s game. And his Twitter feed is a jumbled mess of propaganda, nonsense and revenge.
On Wednesday, Trump bashed our own American intelligence agencies.
“The ‘intelligence’ briefing on so-called ‘Russian hacking’ is delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case,” he wrote. “Very strange!”
He then gave Assange a platform to lie, tweeting that Assange, “said Russians did not give him the info!” The president-elect is giving more credence to an anti-American leaker than our own intelligence agencies. Sad!
The next day Trump tried to spin his own tweets: “The dishonest media likes saying that I am in Agreement with Julian Assange - wrong. I simply state what he states, it is for the people to make up their own minds as to the truth. The media lies to make it look like I am against ‘intelligence’ when in fact I am a big fan!”
That would be laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous. Every word Trump tweets has real consequences, like when he threatened Toyota on Thursday. Toyota’s stock dropped within seconds. If Trump doesn’t take the threat of hacks seriously, there’s a real possibility a foreign agent could hack Trump’s Twitter account and wreak havoc on the planet.
But hey, why would the soon-to-be-leader of the free world get off Twitter when he can bash his rivals?
On Friday, Trump tweeted about his former show Celebrity Apprentice, which is now hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger:
“Wow, the ratings are in and Arnold Schwarzenegger got ‘swamped’ (or destroyed) by comparisons to the ratings machine, DJT. So much for being a movie star - and that was season 1 compared to season 14. But who cares, he supported Kasich & Hillary.”
There’s a word for men like Trump — tool. Hop on the online Urban Dictionary and you’ll find a definition that aptly defines our president-elect:
“An individual who behaves in their own self interest rather than adhering to a set of beliefs or morals. Someone who will act as though to seek approval on the outside, but is actually quite vain and selfish.”
We can all hope that Trump leads this country to greatness and his many detractors eat crow. But it’s hard to see how someone acting like such a tool will ever have the nation’s interests at heart.