Donald Trump’s well-documented and frankly pathetic obsessions with both Twitter and Fox News converged this morning as the president decided to engage in a little of his infamous “executive time,” which this time means subjecting the American people to more of his complaints and self-pity on the social media platform while he rots his brain with segments from the far-right television network.
The president bragged that he’s “the best thing to ever happen to Twitter,” quoting Fox’s Maria Bartiromo because apparently that’s the kind of inane thing that the President of the United States wastes his time discussing these days. He whined, without proof as usual, that Twitter doesn’t treat him “well” because he’s a Republican and that its practices are discriminatory because they make it “hard for people to sign on.”
On some level, he just sounded like a confused old man who doesn’t understand technology or have any clue what he’s talking about, on the other he was pandering to the right-wingers who have convinced themselves in their paranoia that the tech companies are intentionally targeting conservatives to limit their reach. The delusional theory taps into that strain of self-pity and victimhood that has come to dominate the GOP.
Trump claimed that “different names” with over 100 million followers should be “much higher,” whatever that means. He ended the little outburst by calling on Congress to “get involved,” which sound an awful lot like the leader of the party of “small government” calling for a politically motivated federal assault on Twitter.
Whether Trump is really so deeply ignorant as to misunderstand how Twitter works and really believes that it’s targeting Republicans, or he’s if just trotting out another convenient conspiracy theory to incite his base is unclear, but either eventuality shows him to be a man unfit to hold his current office.
“The best thing ever to happen to Twitter is Donald Trump.” @MariaBartiromo So true, but they don’t treat me well as a Republican. Very discriminatory, hard for people to sign on. Constantly taking people off list. Big complaints from many people. Different names-over 100 M…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 23, 2019
…..But should be much higher than that if Twitter wasn’t playing their political games. No wonder Congress wants to get involved – and they should. Must be more, and fairer, companies to get out the WORD!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 23, 2019