Twitter. Let us contemplate the word. Webster’s dictionary defines “twit” as a silly, annoying person, a fool; so, by extension, I assume that Twitter is something that twits do. And in our brave new world of politics and the internet, a twit no longer twitters; we now say, rather, that he tweets out his twitter.
I realize that millions of people are tweeting every day and by no means are they all twits, but there are some who fit the definition to a tee. Many twitterers are just having fun, tweeting out bits of news about themselves, in 280 characters or less, to people who have signed up to be their followers. These dedicated fans can then know in an instant what the twitterer has tweeted.
However, there exist many twitterers whose sole purpose is to cause pain and suffering. And these trolls, as they are called, do this by bullying other twitterers with anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-woman, anti-person of color hate-filled tweets. Twitter attempts to remove some of the worst of them, but many remain.
The president, who regularly trolls on Twitter, appears to be immune from these rules as he qualifies as a “government entity.” This allows him to twitter exactly what he wishes regardless of his often racist and hateful content and tone.
Of course, there are multitudes of serious tweeters, experts in every possible field tweeting out new research and discoveries or just plain news to their many followers. Though my guess is that this isn’t the way these tweeters would choose to communicate, it’s just the way people, these days, seem to want their information in tiny, little tweets.
Let me give you an idea of what I’m talking about when I say little tweets. The first paragraph of this column, by Twitter’s standards, measures 317 characters, 37 more than Twitter allows. Prior to September of this past year, the limit was half that, only 140. Just imagine how difficult tweeting out something of national significance must have been before Twitter’s gift of 140 additional characters.
But our twit-in-chief managed to tweet a whole lot of life-altering bits of information in just those limited 140 characters. Of course, it wasn’t his life that was being altered, just the lives of the entire population of our tiny blue planet, one group of lives at a time. But now he has 280 characters to scare the wits out of us.
Yes, this is the platform on which the man who holds the highest, most powerful office in the land chooses to communicate with us and the world. Not through well-written and vetted speeches, and not through thoroughly researched policy documents. No, all he needs is his phone, his TV and 280 characters.
Which reminds me, recent research has shown a direct correlation between statements made on the Fox News show, “Fox & Friends,” and the president’s tweeting habits. It shows that he often begins tweeting, within minutes, about the same topic on which the hosts have just reported. And because they are followers of the president (along with about 40 million others, although there is some question that a majority of those may not actually be human), the show then projects his tweet on a 30-foot wide screen on air moments later.
How’s that for a feedback loop — they make inflammatory, usually inaccurate statements and he repeats them in a tweet minutes later. Who needs the CIA or the Justice Department when you have “Fox & Friends”?
This month alone we’ve learned by way of the president’s twittering that his “Nuclear Button” is “much bigger & more powerful” than North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and that his button actually works. Now that made the people of the world feel ever so much more secure.
It feels like we’re in the grip of a maniac, who cannot control his twittering or anything else. Will one of those twitter fingers eventually press that great big button of his and end the world as we know it?
Maybe. But one thing is for sure and we know it’s for sure because the president has told us via several more tweets this month — he is very smart and stable, a “very stable genius.” Yes, that’s what he twitted, I mean tweeted, in response to a revealing book recently published that quoted many White House insiders saying, essentially, that the man is a moron, an illiterate moron.
You can always tell that someone is a stable genius when they make sure to tell you that fact about themselves. You never have to wonder. The president made it very clear about that when he tweeted, “Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.”
There you have it, he’s a genius.
And this “genius” is spending ridiculous amounts of time spreading lies about the integrity of our constitutionally protected press, when he should be focused on running this country with its many problems.
One of his most dangerous tweets was this one from February last year: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!” Destroying the people’s trust in the press is one huge step toward the destruction of our democracy. Does Stalin come to mind?
What to do, what to do?
This November we can sweep the Republicans out of their majority in both houses of Congress, taking their awful, regressive, anti-labor, corporate agenda with them. And then after two, only slightly less painful years, a recently reawakened electorate can finish the job by telling that man with the twitchy, dangerous twitter finger – “You’re fired!”
It could happen. It must.
Karen Gardner, of Haydenville, a retired computer programmer, is a bird watcher, nature photographer and ukulele player. She can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.