The Guardian com Trump Is Dangerous Again

"Did you lot run across what the president tweeted?"

It doesn't thing on which side of the alley yous sit or if you plop down right in the middle. At some point since the inauguration, furious or elated, you probably uttered those words.

President Trump has parted with many conventions of the highest function over the past four years, just maybe none has been more than visible than his keeping of a personal Twitter account.

He has used it to announce policy, move markets, set on the press, dispute reports, insult enemies and energize his base — all unvarnished past a announcer's interpretation.

"Without Twitter, in that location would be no Donald Trump presidency," said CNN senior political annotator Kirsten Powers. "And I think he knows that."

Politicians have e'er taken to the latest technology to craft their images, whether President Franklin Roosevelt's "fireside chats" on the radio or President John Kennedy's news conferences on telly. Twitter has offered Trump immediacy and rendered pesky handlers somewhat obsolete, every bit reaching his 87 meg followers takes one click of a button.

"The greatest weakness politicians have is they're inauthentic. Backside closed doors, they exercise offensive things. Merely when they're in public, they act with perfect decorum," said Ari Fleischer, a Fox News contributor who served equally President George Westward. Bush-league's press secretary. "I think 1 of the reasons Trump remains politically competitive is because a lot of Americans credit him with being authentic, even if he goes also far."

Jamie Weinstein, a conservative political journalist and host of the podcast "The Jamie Weinstein Show," predicted that the account has so resonated with Trump'southward base and so infuriated his critics that "when the president leaves office, his Twitter account however will probably exist the virtually powerful Twitter account in the world."

But not all tweets are created equal. As Election Day approaches, nosotros selected the defining tweets of Trump's presidency, the ones that fabricated the most bear on and highlighted major themes from the past 4 years.

THE MARKET MOVER

He wasn't fifty-fifty the president however. Seventeen days earlier the inauguration, as the dominicus was rise, Trump tweeted this threat to the automotive company.

Google searches for GM shot up 200 percent, while the company's stock value declined by 24 cents, a .07 percent drop thank you to 26 words. The corporation responded within an 60 minutes and a one-half with a statement: "All Chevrolet Cruze sedans sold in the U.South. are built in GM's assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio," adding that the Cruze was assembled in Mexico for "global markets."

"Donald Trump's Twitter account is the greatest bully pulpit that has ever existed," Corey Lewandowski, Trump's former entrada manager, told The Washington Post at the time. "In 140 characters, he can modify the management of a Fortune 100 company, he tin notify globe leaders and he tin can too notify government agencies that concern as usual is over."

Turns out that wasn't just spin. And Trump's tweets have affected global markets so often that analysts at JPMorgan created an alphabetize measuring the probability that his tweets moved the bond market, dubbing it the "Volfefe Index."

THE MYSTERIOUS TYPO

Just after midnight, Trump sent that foreign sentence fragment into the globe, where it remained until its deletion some five and a half hours after. As it was relentlessly retweeted and liked, the press — this reporter included — jumped to cover the typo, as if it were a matter of national security.

"Who can figure out the truthful pregnant of 'covfefe' ??? Savor!" Trump cheekily tweeted the next morning.

"I recall the president and a small grouping of people know exactly what he meant," then-press secretary Sean Spicer said at a news conference. (Narrator vox: They didn't.)

Personalized license plates begetting the typo were claimed across the land (but not in Georgia, where it was banned). Dozens upon dozens of applications for the give-and-take poured into the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Linguists sought its pronunciation. A bill in the Firm was named after information technology, equally was a racehorse. The bill failed; the equus caballus won.

For Trump'due south critics, "covfefe" represented incompetence. For his supporters, information technology displayed both relatability — Who doesn't brand typos? — and proof that the media will make a mountain out of any mole hill of a fault. Some conspiratorial-minded ones acted as if they knew exactly what information technology meant. A meme was born.

"Information technology's not your typical auto-right. … It'south this odd, weird, hysterical group of letters," said Eric Schnure, an ex-speechwriter for former vice president Al Gore who has written jokes for politicians on both sides of the aisle. "The follow-up is what made information technology live. We can merely guess, merely if he had said, 'That'south funny. I typed that while falling asleep,' would the story be the same?"

Fleischer, though, argued that the typo may have been a cyberspace positive for the president. "I go a boot out of reporters who chide him for spelling errors in his tweets. I mean, I'm deplorable, but those reporters come up across every bit the scolding schoolteacher we never liked. And Trump is in one case again seen as existent," he said. "Plus, information technology was merely a funny word."

THE TROLLING GIF

Trump certainly doesn't keep his feelings most the mainstream media private (or vice versa). He's tweeted the term "fake news" more than 800 times since his inauguration.

Never was his loathing more axiomatic than when he tweeted a GIF showing him performing in a WWE professional wrestling match, tackling and punching his opponent, who had a CNN logo superimposed on his head.

Political historian Julian Zelizer said that it "embodies everything" nearly Trump's Twitter presence. "Information technology's outrageous. It has a trigger-happy message, which you can say, if you're a defender, that it's just meant to exist a joke. And it's going after an institution that he sees as oppositional." (The White House and the Trump entrada did non return requests for annotate for this article.)

"Every president has fought with the national media at some bespeak," Ronald Reagan biographer Craig Shirley said, recalling a alphabetic character that Harry Truman sent to a Washington Mail service critic threatening to punch him in the nose, or Franklin Roosevelt "handing an imaginary dunce cap" to a reporter and telling him to sit in the corner. Those, however, weren't public declarations.

The CNN GIF was reportedly first posted to Reddit'southward now-banned far-correct message board r/The_Donald by a user who later apologized for information technology. How Trump constitute it remains a mystery (the White Business firm claims he didn't become it from the online bulletin board). Courtney Radsch, advocacy director for the Commission to Protect Journalists, told the Guardian at the fourth dimension, "Singling out individual journalists and news outlets creates a chilling result and fosters an environment where further harassment and even concrete attacks are seen to be acceptable."

"I was outraged past it, and I found information technology kind of scary," said Powers, the CNN political annotator. "I used to exist on Play a trick on where I said things that made the audition mad all the fourth dimension. It wasn't until Trump that I started having legitimate fears."

Others, though, pointed out that the GIF might have been a form of Internet trolling, a childish effort to provoke a disproportionate reaction from the media.

It wasn't "exactly a presidential tweet, simply also not quite the threat to the complimentary printing as well many made it out to be," argued Weinstein, the bourgeois journalist. "Sometimes it's okay to not take his tweets literally or seriously."

Earlier this month, after Trump ended his covid-19 hospital stint, Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) tweeted a version of the same GIF with the CNN logo replaced by an image of the coronavirus.

THE POLICYMAKER

Aaron Belkin was visiting his parents in Cleveland when a phone call woke him upwards. An overseas journalist wanted comment well-nigh a tweet he hadn't seen yet. For Belkin, director of the Palm Center, a think tank in San Francisco that promotes the written report of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the military, that tweet aimed to destroy his life'southward piece of work.

"I was only kind of very sad and upset but had to put the emotions aside to deal with the crunch," Belkin said. "If you lot tin ban LGBT people from the war machine, that will have ripple furnishings beyond the residual of government and society. And it sets a precedent for bigotry in other realms similar health-care insurance and diverse ceremonious rights."

The tweets shocked many people, particularly since Trump had called himself a "real friend" to the customs while on the entrada trail. But information technology as well led to logistical questions: Were these tweets an official argument of policy?

"It was unclear what it was. Information technology contradicted some of what the armed forces was doing, and information technology sowed a lot of confusion," Zelizer said. Merely "by putting something out in that location, information technology's and so a give-and-take. And you're forcing the military to respond and to deal with this themselves, and you don't take to be the person doing it."

The tweets were later used against the president in a protracted legal battle as he attempted to implement his proposed ban, one of several times his online statements undercut his policy proposals in courtroom.

THE THREAT

Trump doesn't use his Twitter account just to announce unformed policy. He also uses it for international diplomacy with all the finesse of a shock jock, equally seen 2 days into 2018, when he tweeted this implicit threat.

This was "a remarkable moment. It took a chat that normally would have existed through diplomatic channels, through the State Department, through ambassadors, through people who were trying to ratchet downwardly tensions between 2 nations, and instead blew it upwards," said Princeton history professor Kevin M. Kruse. The closest state of affairs in U.S. history he could recall was at the height of the Cold State of war when a hot mic defenseless Reagan during a audio check saying: "I'g pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that volition outlaw Russia forever. We brainstorm bombing in v minutes."

"But that was unintentional," Kruse said. "That was a joke. He was clearly not serious."

Others, though, contend that forgoing the usual diplomatic channels might be an constructive tactic, particularly when dealing with disciplinarian regimes. Fleischer cited an argument oft made on the right that the public threat frightened Kim into diplomatic conversations. "The irony of that tweet that made people run for the hills thinking state of war was imminent may have very well created a much more calm atmosphere."

[More 2022 election coverage]

THE CATCHPHRASE

Trump has always showed a fondness for the phrase, which he's tweeted more than 370 times since first uttering it back in 2011 referencing the sexual harassment allegations confronting Herman Cain, a businessman then seeking the Republican presidential nomination. But he really began using it in earnest during the Mueller investigation, and February 2022 was its offset solo advent. Shortly enough, he'd sent it out more than than "make America keen again," which he's tweeted a mere 175 times.

One of Trump'due south strengths as a pol is his knack for coining phrases that are adored by his base and go pebbles in the shoes of his critics. Twitter is a place to try out new riffs, insulting nicknames and catchphrases, oft without context — possibly the only platform where that's possible, since shouting them out randomly at a news conference before walking offstage wouldn't make much sense. He'll then work them into his speeches and smile equally his base chants them, "simply like a stand-up, to see what lands and what doesn't," said Weinstein.

On the other hand, some of the phrases he's created during his presidency seem less intentional. Instance in signal: "a very stable genius." That came at the end of 3 tweets in January 2022 in which he praised his own "mental stability and intelligence."

Information technology quickly became a meme, generally used to mock Trump, such as by superimposing those words over an image of a donkey in — yous guessed it — a stable. Information technology also became the title of a book well-nigh his presidency past Post reporters Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker.

"Who actually calls himself a genius?" said Schnure. "And so you add together the word 'stable' in front of information technology, and now you're [unintentionally] next-level funny. Because that's only not an describing word you put before 'genius.' Are y'all a Mensa genius? An evil genius? Maybe. But he picked a word that in an emergency room is used to say someone is going to exist okay."

Trump has embraced the phrase, saying and tweeting information technology several times since, which has helped debunk its power as an insult.

"He knows information technology gets under people's skin, so he'due south going to repeat it, have fun with people," Schnure said.

THE SURPRISE FIRING

Historians remember President Abraham Lincoln fired Union Gen. Nathaniel Banks in a telegram. Truman canned Gen. Douglas MacArthur the same style.

Trump, however, became the first to acceleration with an employee via social media when he appear the ousting of and so-Secretary of State Male monarch Tillerson on Twitter, three hours before calling and telling him. In the intervening time, Tillerson, who had cut ties with ExxonMobil afterwards 41 years to presume the part, just told reporters in a statement that he "did non speak to the president, and is unaware of the reason" for his firing, but he was "grateful for the opportunity to serve."

"Fifty-fifty within his own administration and within the Republican Party, he likes to use this to keep people on their toes and to make them feel uncertain about what comes next," said Zelizer.

While it may have been an constructive display of Trump'southward power, Tim Fullerton, a old Obama administration official, suggested that the firing had unseen ripple furnishings on morale. "I would have felt demoralized that the president idea so little of my department and the leadership there that firing off a tweet announcing the firing of somebody was appropriate," he said.

THE FEARMONGERING INSULT

Sometimes, Fleischer said, Trump "hits himself in his own nose. … He's misused Twitter in sometimes very hateful means that hurt him more than his intended target."

Though he didn't specifically name anyone in this tweet, information technology was clear he was referring to "the squad," four progressive congresswomen of color, 3 of whom were born in the United States.

Zelizer said Trump'due south antagonism toward the team seemed like an attempt to paint the Democratic Party as radical, a tactic he's connected in his campaign against Joe Biden. But the backlash to this detail linguistic communication was swift and tearing, even within his own party.

"This President has always loved to prey on people's fears," one of the squad members, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), recalled via email, later adding: "People similar me have always been the targets of his nigh xenophobic, racist attacks. But we aren't going anywhere."

One of Trump's near divisive traits on Twitter is his willingness to hurl insults — frequently offensive, sometimes racist and misogynistic — at political opponents, dating back to his belligerence against Hillary Clinton and his Republican principal opponents.

"The attacks I become now, in the Trump era, are very different than the attacks I got in the pre-Trump era," said Powers. "It's a consequent stream of misogyny. … It seems to be a real tactic."

"He was really working to tap into some of the stereotypes and ideas that people already accept about women of colour, seeing them every bit angry, loud, disruptive, un-American, and undeserving of this country's resources and attention," said Sherri Williams, a professor of race, media and advice at American University. More than broadly through these tweets, and those criticizing other prominent politicians of colour such equally the tardily congressmen John Lewis and Elijah E. Cummings, Williams said, Trump is attempting to stoke "the fears that some White people have while we see the country go more Chocolate-brown and Blackness every day."

THE RACIST RETWEET

The golf cart in the video bears two signs: a bluish one reading "Trump 2020" and a red one reading "America First." Several more carts follow. At a glance, it looks similar an innocuous parade of Trump supporters. Vi seconds in, though, the beginning driver holds up his fist and through a mustachioed mouth yells: "White power! White power!"

That is no longer shocking in 2022 America. What is shocking is that the president retweeted it. He presently removed the tweet, and "a White House spokesman said Trump had non heard the racist language when he sent" it, as The Post reported.

Trump subsequently said in an interview that "it's the retweets" that get him "in trouble."

Many have suggested that the president uses retweets strategically, as a manner of sharing content while distancing himself from it — in this case, to endorse white nationalism while retaining plausible deniability.

But most of the experts The Mail consulted think his tweets typically aren't an effort at iv-D chess. Former Obama speechwriter David Litt, recalling his time working in the administration, said that "political journalists tend to overestimate how strategic anybody is existence anyway, even pre-Trump." Administrations spend as much, if not more, of their time responding to events rather than planning them. "No one is playing chess. Anybody is playing Whack-a-Mole."

THE OCTOBER SURPRISE

It arrived while many were asleep, virtually ten months into the pandemic: the tweet that would ship the country into a panic as it woke upwardly. It racked upwardly more than than i 1000000 retweets, the virtually of any during Trump's presidency. It also logged more than 1.eight one thousand thousand "likes," another personal record, though it'south hard to know how many were sending all-time wishes or literally liking that the diagnosis had occurred.

Some replies wished Trump a speedy recovery. Many offered 280-grapheme prayers. Ane man drew a glowing portrait. Others criticized his administration's response to the pandemic — or expressed utter fury, tweeting things one can't imagine being said to the president of the Usa.

As reporters struggled to trace his wellness status and the illness's spread through the White Firm, the tweet offered one vital piece of data: a timestamp, the irrefutable constant.

Trump was cleared to go out Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre on October. 5. He sent the news in a tweet.

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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/technology/trump-twitter-tweets-president/

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