Far less than a week after his historic and shocking win, President-Elect Donald J. Trump is back to using his Twitter account to display his paper-thin skin and mile-long ego.
Despite telling the press as early as yesterday that he would now be using his account sparingly – if at all – Trump took to his favorite social media outlet on Sunday morning to say that the New York Times was covering him very unfairly – and losing tons of subscribers as a result – as well as bragging about how former frenemy Mitt Romney had called to congratulate him.
Is this truly what we are in for for the next four years? Sadly, it appears so.
Our soon-to-be president shared these important messages with his newly gained constituency:
Folks, the US president-elect is back on Twitter, ranting about his media and political opponents. Guess they couldn’t take his phone away. pic.twitter.com/C14eqV5lT6
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) November 13, 2016
These tweets aren’t just stupid, childish, or inadvised, they are also a dangerous sign of what is to come.
First, the messages show is that despite winning the biggest contest he could, Trump is still intimidated and angered by the free press. As president-elect, his comments about a respected – and constitutionally protected – member of the press are far more dangerous than they were when he was merely a long-shot candidate.
Candidate Trump threatened the press and banned many respected members from his events – will a President Trump keep up these petty and damaging behaviors? It appears the answer is yes.
Second, this desperate reaching out for attention when Trump gets his feelings hurt does not bode well for national security. Trump loved to rant about how the U.S. Government apparently warns its enemies far too early about military movement, but how could President Trump stop himself from leaking secrets about negotiations between nations, or sharing his latest beef after having a diplomatic meeting with another country’s leader.
Where does this oversharing end – or does it end at all?
