
I slowed my brushing and peered out the window. One morning, while brushing my teeth, I heard Sean Hannity's voice outside my bathroom window, shouting about "illegal aliens" using "your tax money" for abortions. Every morning, he hauled ladders and buckets and tarps from his silver pickup truck, doling out grandfatherly pleasantries as he went. He was an older guy who wore plain white t-shirts that cradled his paunch. Last summer, my husband and I hired a house painter. On a good day, I craft tweets to sharpen my own thoughts as I sit with news events that defy logic.īut fine-tuning an argument on social media is mostly just an exercise, and one unlikely to prepare you for a productive conversation with a real live person on the other side of a major political or cultural divide. I enjoy using social media - more, quite honestly, than I’d care to admit. Fighting Trump online doesn’t weaken him there or elsewhere. The authors of “ Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending American Democracy” call the feedback loop between social media, conventional media and politics a “no-win game for democracy.” That’s because the power bestowed by social media comes from strong reactions. They’re like Pac Man: The whole point is to keep you playing. are not engineered for the resolution of conflict, or the triumph of sound ideas.

They’re not engineered for the resolution of conflict, or the triumph of sound ideas. But social media platforms aren’t built for winning. Those of us provoked by the most outrageous or offensive of these missives will be drawn into a vortex of hostile discourse, treating Twitter and Facebook as the battlegrounds where the fight for American democracy could be won. If Trump returns to Twitter we’ll be contending not just with his tweets, but with a media ecosystem seemingly duty-bound to report each one as news. I don’t think reactivating Trump’s accounts is the right decision, but what I’m really thinking about is how the rest of us can handle what we’ll predictably encounter when and if Trump starts tweeting and posting. For now, posting on either platform would violate Trump’s exclusive contract with Truth Social, his own social media company. Last week, Meta announced that the former president would regain access to Facebook and Instagram. In November, Twitter CEO Elon Musk reactivated Trump’s account (though he has yet to use it - here’s the last tweet on his timeline). Capitol that both platforms revoked Trump’s access.Įqually unfortunate: The reprieve from Trump’s missives may soon come to an end. On Twitter, his baseless rants about election fraud were accompanied by tepid footnotes letting users know the claims had been “disputed.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t until the violent Jan. By then, he’d been spreading dangerous misinformation about the 2020 election in violation of both companies’ policies for months without serious intervention. We did eventually get a respite from the tweets: Trump lost access to Twitter and Facebook in Jan.
#Donald j trump twitter series
I've forgotten most variations on our running gag, but one Jen delivered with a pained expression sticks with me: "In a series of early morning tweets." We’d walk over to each other’s desks and deliver the opening clause of a formulaic Trump story we never wanted to hear again. My coworker Jen and I developed a particular form of gallows humor to get through the constant barrage.

The day’s headlines provided a constant soundtrack, and that soundtrack was dominated by Donald Trump. On my way to meetings, during quick jaunts to the printer, even - modesty be damned - on visits to the restroom. In the early days of the Trump presidency, I worked at a public radio station in Kansas City, Missouri - the news broadcast over loudspeakers wherever I went.
#Donald j trump twitter tv
president Donald Trump on a TV screen is seen in this photo illustration in Warsaw, Poland on 23 February, 2022. A slow shutter speed image of former U.S.
