During his presidency, Thomas Jefferson was known, for obvious reasons, as “The Apostle of Democracy,” and Andrew Jackson was nicknamed “Old Hickory” because his former troops thought he was as tough as wood. We all know Abraham Lincoln was “Honest” Abe, Harry Truman was “Give ’Em Hell” Harry and Richard Nixon was “Tricky Dick.” In fact, sometimes nicknames become synonymous with the president. “JFK” comes immediately to mind.
So while history will dictate what that nickname will be for President Donald Trump, I think I have the perfect alias: TWOTUS, or Tweeter of the United States. While President Obama certainly used social media to get his message out, Trump looks like he is on his way to be the first president ever to run the country using Twitter. For the record, that is not a compliment.
Trump used social media during his campaign, and even before, to take potshots, call names and basically whine about all the unfairness that he’s experienced. It makes sense that he would use Twitter in this way because he’s the best in the world at it. How do we know? Because he’s told us in a tweet: “Many are saying I’m the best 140 character writer in the world. It’s easy when it’s fun.”
While I haven’t given Trump a break on anything in the past year, I will say that I did assume/believe that once he became the president-elect, it would at least keep him from getting into Twitter wars with, well, pretty much everyone on the planet. I mean, it’s not very presidential to act petty on social media, but apparently Trump doesn’t feel that way. In the past week, he’s taken to social media to trash both Saturday Night Live and a member of the cast of Hamilton, who made an impassioned plea to audience member Mike Pence, the vice president-elect, to “work on behalf of all of us, all of us.”
Trump sent several tweets over the weekend: “The cast and producers of Hamilton, which I hear is highly overrated, should immediately apologize to Mike Pence for their terrible behavior,” and “Very rude and insulting of Hamilton cast member to treat our great future V.P. Mike Pence to a theater lecture. Couldn’t even memorize lines!”
Several things have me worried about this. First, Trump is showing that he still can’t hold himself together in the face of any criticism. Secondly, he still doesn’t understand the concept of free speech. And finally: Why can’t Trump just stay off the goddamned Twitter! It’s a sickness.
These things together concern me because I imagine a Trump presidency where he tweets us into a nuclear war, or, probably more realistically, sets us up as the target for even more terror attacks. These are the type of Tweets I imagine:
- Chinese losers think we can’t live without their money and products. They started trade war when they overreacted to very fair 45% tariff.
- Took out Isis No. 32 guy and entire village he was hiding in. Way more huge than when Obama took out Bin Laden. Drones, bombs, very big.
- Mexican haters refusing to pay for border wall. U.S. can’t do this alone. Neighbors should work together. Very poor attitude by Mexico.
- Spent Christmas with Vladamir Putin at Mar-a-Lago. Best Xmas since the original. Wore footie pajamas with eagles. Vlad’s had bears.
- Senate Republicans better wise up. Ivanka will be best Supreme Court Justice since Scalia. Bigly qualified.
- Alec Baldwin arrested for treason for SNL sketch criticizing immigration policies. Show not funny since Charles Rocket left in 1981.
On the bright side, the tweets above are just a joke; unfortunately, I think the ones TWOTUS will actually send in the future will be much, much worse.
