Great observation from Mark Hmmer, via The Daily 202:
The genius of the Trump Clinton Twitter war of 2016 is that it consumes Trump's every waking minute & Clinton doesn't know it's happening.
— Mark Hammer (@markhammer1987) June 11, 2016
More here:
A presidential candidate and a snarky intern in a battle of wits on the world stage.
— Mark Hammer (@markhammer1987) June 11, 2016
Brilliant! Trump’s graceless and boastful tweets after the Orlando shootings clearly highlighted one danger of his easy access to Twitter: it’s an unfiltered channel straight from his Id to our eyes.
But Hammer points out something just as important. To Trump, Twitter IS his online campaign, since he’s publicly rejected the idea of systemically cultivating grassroots support via a “data processing machine” like Obama’s. After all, his tweets cowed his hapless opponents during the Republican primaries! Meanwhile, we’ve seen Hillary Clinton build a modern digital campaign determined to marry data and direct outreach to wring every bit of advantage out of each online (and offline) encounter with a voter.
Of course, Trump’s twiddling on Twitter could always end his campaign overnight, since he’s only 140 characters away from horrifying most sentient beings on the planet (I, for one, eagerly await his first glowing tweet about Hitler). But even if he DOESN’T self-destruct in epic fashion, Trump’s Twitter remains a dangerous distraction. Doesn’t a presidential candidate have more important things to do than type with his thumbs? Like, for instance, creating a campaign that could actually win a close vote.
– cpd
Photo: Donald Trump speaking with the media at a hangar at Mesa Gateway Airport in Mesa, Arizona, by Gage Skidmore