The Midnight Tweeter

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For those interested in such things as the skewed thinking of Trump family members, including their tweets, here’s a story (The Washington Post, Dec.9) that opens with a tweet by Donald’s son Eric—and continues with some of the responses that it effected: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/eric-trump-claims-wisconsin-recount-killed-at-least-5000-children-and-gets-pounded-on-twitter/

But that’s just a side-note to illustrate the nature of his children, whom President-elect Donald has decided to regally grant top U. S. security clearance. We could pause here to reflect how this same unprincipled guy raved and ranted over the possibility that some small bits of classified information might have inadvertently been included in e-mails over Hillary’s personal server. 

However it’s Donald Trumps inane, persistent small-minded tweeting, his total obsession with protecting the personal narcissistic image he has created of himself—all while the rest of the world crumbles around him—that holds my real attention. Picture it after he takes office: The supposedly most powerful man in the world, pacing about the Lincoln Bedroom at 3:00 a.m., re-tweeting perhaps some teenager in Kalamazoo, Michigan, whom he felt had besmirched the image of his Supreme Greatness with a few rather innocuous words recently. 

Donald’s  happily fiddling with Twitter while the world burns. The Washington Post  commented Dec. 23: “Since winning the election, Trump has seemed to revel in tossing firecrackers in all directions, often using Twitter to offer brief but provocative pronouncements on foreign and domestic policies alike — and leaving it to others to flesh out his true intentions. . .”

Indeed. Endless tweets have originated from Donald himself in recent weeks, some quite scary—one of the latest dealing with increasing our nuclear arms arsenal. He comes through as a superficial thinker unable to accept factual detail that does not coincide with his vague opinions of the moment. He seems to think Twitter is the cat’s meow as he argues one-on-one with most anyone who chooses not to glorify him, attacks anyone who doesn’t think exactly as he does (or claims to). The world is getting a lot of one-liners by someone who can’t handle context. Let’s face it; he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about a great deal of the time. 

Among the daily items I file and save—rather than read and forget as Republican propandists wish all of us would do—is a story appearing in The Washington Post Dec. 8 and headlined “This is what happens when Donald Trump attacks a private citizen on Twitter.”

I’ll quote here the opening portion of the story: “About a year ago, 18-year-old college student Lauren Batchelder stood up in a political forum in New Hampshire and told Donald Trump that she didn’t think he was ‘a friend to women.’ The next morning, Trump fired back on Twitter—calling Batchelder an ‘arrogant young woman’ and accusing her of being a ‘plant’ from a rival campaign. Her phone began ringing with callers leaving threatening messages that were often sexual in nature. Her Facebook and email inboxes filled with similar messages. As her addresses circulated on social media and her photo flashed on the news, she fled home to hide. 

“’I didn’t really know what anyone was going to do,’ said Batchelder . . . ‘ This is what happens when Trump targets a private citizen who publicly challenges him.”

The Post pointed out how Twitter allows Trump to quickly act on a fleeting idea, in a fit of anger, or in response to something he sees on TV. With one tweet he can change headlines on cable news, move financial markets or cause world leaders to worry. “I think I am very restrained, and I talk about important things,” Trump told the Today show early this month. 

But it’s more like “important things” are ignored when Donald gets all tweeted up with a union leader who has called him a liar. And he doesn’t really “talk” about things. He merely tosses off a 140-character tweet about whatever strikes his mind at any given moment. He’s neither much of a listener nor a reader—and, as we know, is not notably articulate.

Batchelder’s abuse was continuing almost a year later at the hands of cowardly Trump supporters.  On Facebook, she received shortly before election day: “Wishing I could f---ing punch you in the face. Id then proceed to stomp your head on the curb and urinate in your bloody mouth and I know where you live, so watch your f---ing back punk.” 

The original exchange between Bachelder and Trump at his rally on Oct. 12, 2015, actually was somewhat prolonged and was well covered by CNN and other outlets. “I love women, I respect women, I cherish women,” Trump claimed at one point. Batchelder regained the microphone and said: “I want to get paid the same as a man, and I think you understand that, so if you become president, will a woman make the same as a man, and do I get to choose what I do with my body?” Trump responded curtly: “You’re going to make the same if you do as good of a job, and I happen to be pro-life, okay?”

But Donald just couldn’t let it go. After midnight, his director of social media tweeted out screen grabs of Batchelder’s social media accounts, and by 7:39 a.m., Trump himself was tweeting about “the arrogant young woman who questioned me in such a nasty fashion. . .”

So, about that First Amendment . . .  Free Speech and all that. It appears many of us are going to wind up actually paying dearly for it. Lauren Batchelder already is a leading example.

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