America, in yet another deeply regrettable discovery since Nov. 8, has learned in the last week and a half that the 45th president is still in possession of his Twitter account. Demonstrating a remarkable lack of ability to pretend he actually meant that he wanted to be a unifying president, as he claimed in his victory speech, Donald Trump has spent the time since Election Day on Twitter lying, reversing past positions and attacking everyone in reach. Occasionally he has made a comment related to his transition, but for the most part, it’s been an embarrassing display of our next president’s paper-thin skin and failure to understand the importance of the First Amendment.
Let’s start with the First Amendment. On Nov. 10, Trump cried that it is “unfair” that people are protesting his election, and that the media must have incited them. Nine hours later, on Nov. 11, it appeared that someone explained to him that people have the right to disagree with him, and he decided he “loved” the fact that people are protesting. Many people thought this meant he was about to begin behaving more presidentially.
But two days later, he breathed horrifying new life into his briefly stalled battle with the media, tweeting six times in the next three days about the “failing @newyorktimes,” which joined the club of adjective-name Trump titles along with such greats as “Crooked Hillary” and “Lyin’ Ted.” And what is his opinion of the “failing” New York Times?
Dishonest. Inaccurate. Hilarious complaints, given that he’s been ducking the press since his election and refusing to give them any information to work with, but it’s also utterly disturbing that a future leader of a democratic country has so little respect for the free press. Not only does he usually tend to get mad about the NYT’s most accurate coverage of him, crippling his theory that they are simply vindictively lying about him, but the fact that he cannot handle negative press coverage is disappointing at best and pathetic at worst. Trump is going to have to get used to it, particularly given the rhetoric he has introduced into our political system. The protests and negative press will continue. Having people hate you and criticize you and taking that hate and criticism with grace is part of the job.
It cannot be made clearer that President-elect Trump is not capable of that. Following the audience booing his vice president at a showing of Hamilton and the cast begging him after the show to govern for all the people, Trump fired back with four tweets as of the writing of this article. One said that “this should not happen” and referred to the incident as harassment.
The next said that the theater should be a “safe and special place” and ordered the cast to apologize.
The third, which he deleted after posting it, referred to how rude and insulting the cast had been and then rudely and insultingly mocked them for not memorizing their message.
And the fourth called the show “overrated” and again called on them to apologize for their “terrible behavior.”
Using your platform to give a message to someone who is about to have immense influence over your lives is the right of every American, regardless of whether it is rude or insulting. The message was not accusatory, and Pence himself was not offended.
As president, Trump needs to learn how to get over it. Obama has been quietly sitting through eight years of people calling him a “monkey” and the n-word, which are infinitely worse and more offensive than being booed at a theater. A sitting congressman from our own state took it upon himself to scream at him in the middle of the State of the Union and he continued without comment. Bush was called stupid for eight years and joked about it at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. And then there’s Donald, who is upset by the mere shadow of dissent and criticism.
Yes, in comparison to his developing horror show of a cabinet, his Twitter isn’t that big of a deal. It definitely shouldn’t be the focus of media coverage. But not having his hair-trigger temper and disrespect for the peaceful exercise of free speech on full-color display would be a low-effort baby step towards putting people’s minds at ease and keeping him from being a national embarrassment. His team should look at the precedent from the week leading up to the election and take his Twitter away.