Like it or not, social media, and right now Twitter specifically, is the future of communication between politicians and the public. You are standing on the cutting edge of communication. (Personally, I detest Twitter, but I probably should give in and embrace it.) Donald Trump isn’t the first one to use it, but he is the first one to refine its use and make it effective for his own purposes. Targeted tweets (Vin Scully once called them “twits”, LOL!!!, so innocently appropriate) telling people on his side what they want to hear. And while the other side will inevitably react, he’s not really doing it for them, at least not as much.
Mr Trump can rattle off tweets, each one different from the last, in a seemingly uncoordinated fashion if you were to read them all together, but this strategy does have a certain logic to it. Reality is that people hear only two things… that which they want to hear so they can tout it and agree with it, and that which they vehemently disagree with so they can act all outraged… which gains the tweeter even more attention. For being a dolt, Trump does have a handle on this. He knows that everything else will be filtered out by the individual audience members.
Younger politicians are catching on, too. For all of you who decry everything Trump does as somehow immoral and/or unethical, politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) are doing the… exact… same… thing. Their strategy is pretty much identical. They’re bypassing the media, they’re bypassing their party, they’re going directly to the people with their own message and framing it to their liking, not filtered by the biases of the 3rd wheel reporter. Don’t criticize Trump for this unless you’re willing to be fair and criticize her, as well.
Think about it, how many times have you said or thought, “I wish we could hear what a politician really thinks.”? Well, now you can, and sometimes it’s kind of scary, isn’t it? At least sobering. I will continue to point out when a politician is being a moron, as both examples above are extreme whack-job fringes of their respective ideologies, and are prone to be moronic, but this is our foreseeable political future. It’s quite possibly actually a good thing. Be grateful.
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