Highbrow Magazine - trump tweets https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/trump-tweets en The Erratic, Conflicting Beliefs of Donald Trump https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/8899-erratic-conflicting-beliefs-donald-trump <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sun, 02/25/2018 - 12:30</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1trumpnra.jpg?itok=ks8CMzrl"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1trumpnra.jpg?itok=ks8CMzrl" width="480" height="270" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>Opinion:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>If Donald Trump were a doctor, and you had a terminal illness, he’d never tell you.</p> <p> </p> <p>The president is incapable of letting anyone down. I don’t mean that literally; I mean from his perspective. Through his eyes, he is eternally in the right, and it is irrelevant if you disagree. If you have cancer and Donald Trump says that you don’t, you unequivocally don’t, despite the fact that you do. He built his candidacy on baseless egoism and so, like a child who never gets disciplined for pooping in the kitchen, he continues to say and do whatever he wants, whenever he wants.</p> <p> </p> <p>“I generally oppose gun control, but I support the ban on assault weapons and I also support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun.”--Donald Trump, from his 2000 book, <em>The America That We Deserve. </em></p> <p> </p> <p>This is one of the more spineless and ambiguous things a person could say. “I like guns, but I think that people shouldn’t be able to kill too many people with them.” And what does generally mean? When does he support it? When doesn’t he? Trump sought to make a statement that would alienate as few people as possible. Although this isn’t the most radically liberal stance in the world, it certainly does deviate from the hardliner NRA stance on gun control, which says that guns are an unalienable right no matter the caliber or the cartridge.</p> <p> </p> <p>Speaking at an NRA forum in 2015: “I love the NRA. I love the Second Amendment. I promise you one thing, if I run for president and if I win, the Second Amendment will be totally protected, that I can tell you.”</p> <p>He delivered this message before declaring his candidacy, but clearly laying a primer for a run. Since he was now talking to his potential base, he abandoned his indeterminate rhetoric as it would serve no purpose in the present context. The room loved guns, so now he did too.</p> <p> </p> <p>During a GOP debate in 2015: “I do carry on occasion, sometimes a lot. But I like to be unpredictable.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Trump logic: I do carry guns, but I don’t want people to think I’m always packing. But, no, my supporters love guns so, yeah, I carry them all the time, sometimes! But you’ll never know if I’m carrying because I’m Batman.</p> <p> </p> <p>What draws people to Donald Trump is the same thing that turns so many others away--he wants exactly what you want, if you happen to want something that helps him. He does not believe in gun control. He does not believe in gun rights. He is incapable of choosing a side, so he lets the side choose him.</p> <p>And once it does, it seems very hard for him to refuse.</p> <p> </p> <p>A day after two journalists were killed on live TV in Virginia, in 2015: “This isn’t a gun problem, this is a mental problem. It’s not a question of the laws, it’s really the people.”</p> <p>That is an audacious thing for a presidential hopeful to say. He’s saying that the people of America cannot be controlled; the system is not to blame. It’s much easier to blame a person for a crime than his or her method of perpetration. After all, guns don’t <em>want </em>to kill anyone--people do. To Trump, faulting guns for a shooting is like faulting a car for driving; you can’t hold a Prius accountable for its actions.</p> <p> </p> <p>In fact, to Trump, guns are pretty f---ing beautiful.</p> <p> </p> <p>June 2016, at a rally in Texas after the shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando: "If some of those wonderful people had guns strapped right here, right to their waist or right to their ankle, and this son of a bitch comes out and starts shooting, and one of the people in that room happened to have it and goes boom, boom, you know what? That would have been a beautiful, beautiful sight, folks, that would have been a beautiful, beautiful sight."</p> <p> </p> <p>After you get over the fact that an actual president of an actual country said this, you can pretty easily identify his only tactic when speaking, ever: pander. There isn’t a trace of a conviction here or an inherent ideology about gun rights. He simply latches on to one idea--in this case that guns are beautiful--and repeats it until he gets a response that he likes. And this isn’t a difficult feat when you only expose yourself to people and places that agree with you. When he finds himself in the rare situation in whhich he feels challenged, he does what all threatened narcissists do. </p> <p> </p> <p>“Out.”--Donald Trump’s response to Jim Acosta during a January, 2016 press conference, after he was asked if he wanted to accept immigrants of color.</p> <p> </p> <p>If Trump knew what his stance on immigration was, this question would have been easy to dismantle. If he had any clear plan in the front or back of his head he could have come back with something, anything other than a pointed finger and a three-letter word. But it was Acosta’s fault for asking the question. It was his mistake to put Trump in that situation. It was a mean, nasty thing for him to do, and Trump had to discipline him. Trump is never confused and he is never wrong.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/14trumphat.jpg" style="height:446px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>In fact, oftentimes he is right even when he was never asked.</p> <p> </p> <p>Also after the Pulse nightclub shooting: "What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough."</p> <p> </p> <p>It’s amazing how much he can do with a Tweet. I mean, the man can really cover his bases. The first thing he does is to scare everyone; if people are scared then they’ll need to be saved. Then he points his finger (again) at those responsible--the enemy, Barack Obama. Then vindication. If only they had listened to the Donald, then all of those innocent lives could have been spared. And he caps it off with some manly wisdom, much like a tough but thoughtful father, justifying the fact that he spanks his child.</p> <p>Twitter was built for Trump. Not only can he deliver short, simple, unanswerable soundbites about anything he wants, but he can’t be held accountable, which is a pretty outrageous fact, seeing as how he is PRESIDENT. Case and point: A Muslim ban wouldn’t have kept Omar Mir Seddique from murdering 49 people on June 12, 2016--he was born and raised in America (though, in Trump’s defense, he only wanted to be president at the time of this Tweet).</p> <p>Long before his candidacy, Trump made a discovery that would grow into the backbone of his campaign--a lot of Americans are racist, and that was something he could easily tap into.</p> <p> </p> <p>A Tweet from June 5, 2013: “Sadly, the overwhelming amount of violent crime in our major cities is committed by blacks and hispanics-a tough subject-must be discussed.”</p> <p> </p> <p>There are no facts here. No statistics. No justification. Just words uttered by someone who has the ability to say them. And saying them makes them true. Having them read and commented on and liked by thousands of people cements them in reality. He can now look back at them and know, based on the reaction of his followers, that he’s right.</p> <p> </p> <p>Fast-forward to January 11, 2018: “The Democrats seem intent on having people and drugs pour into our country from the Southern Border, risking thousands of lives in the process. It is my duty to protect the lives and safety of all Americans. We must build a Great Wall, think Merit and end Lottery &amp; Chain. USA!”</p> <p> </p> <p>This tweet is absolutely insane. He goes from accusing half of the political system of wanting drugs to “pour” into the country, to asserting his role as sheriff of America, to offhandedly demanding a “Great Wall”--due to the capitalization I can only assume he’s referencing China, to tagging his tweet, “USA”, like a drunken frat boy watching the Olympics. This is a tweet from a man who is completely sure of himself, who knows that he is perfect and capable of anything. A man who has no choice but to say the right thing.</p> <p> </p> <p>On the rare occasion, however, his Tweets have been known to misfire.</p> <p> </p> <p>February 17th, after the massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School: “Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign - there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!”</p> <p> </p> <p>Trump’s gut reaction to a school shooting: “The death of those students and teachers is the perfect opportunity for me to stick it to the FBI.” Again, he is trying to find a way to spin the story in a way that involves him, and that pleases his base. Unfortunately, a common sentiment shared by nearly all human beings alludes him: the slaying of innocent children takes precedence over a collusion case.</p> <p> </p> <p>But luckily Donald is quick on his feet--or rather with his fingers.</p> <p> </p> <p>Twitter, three days later, February 20th: “Whether we are Republican or Democrat, we must now focus on strengthening Background Checks!”</p> <p> </p> <p>Good save, Mr. President. I’m confident that that’s what you really want.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Sam Chapin is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/donald-trump" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Donald Trump</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/nra" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">NRA</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-rights" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun rights</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/anti-gun-laws" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">anti-gun laws</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/trump-tweets" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">trump tweets</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Sam Chapin</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Google Images; Wikipedia Commons</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sun, 25 Feb 2018 17:30:13 +0000 tara 7949 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/8899-erratic-conflicting-beliefs-donald-trump#comments Trump’s Incriminating Tweet and Michael Flynn’s Plea https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/8672-trump-s-incriminating-tweet-and-michael-flynn-s-plea <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sun, 12/10/2017 - 12:10</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1flynn.jpg?itok=UY9804_T"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1flynn.jpg?itok=UY9804_T" width="480" height="270" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>This article was originally published in </strong><a href="http://billmoyers.com/story/trump-russia-tweets-incriminating/"><strong>BillMoyers.com</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>The media controversy over who wrote President Trump’s Dec. 2, 2017 tweet shifted attention away from a key point about the tweet itself: It is a double-barreled lie that obscures the facts surrounding a more important story.</p> <p>Here is the tweet at the center of the storm:</p> <p> </p> <p><a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump" style="line-height: 1.6em;"><strong>Donald J. Trump</strong></a></p> <p><u><a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump">✔@realDonaldTrump</a></u></p> <p>I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!</p> <p><a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/937007006526959618">12:14 PM - Dec 2, 2017</a></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>The Media Controversy</strong></p> <p>Immediately after it appeared, pundits began debating whether Trump had incriminated himself. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/02/politics/trump-tweet-flynn-firing-fbi-reaction/index.html" target="_blank">Some thought</a> that Trump had admitted to <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/obstruction_of_justice" target="_blank">obstructing justice</a>.</p> <p>Here’s their argument: Trump tweeted that he “had to fire Gen. Flynn because [Flynn] lied” — but not just to Vice President Pence, as Trump and the White House had maintained since February. Trump’s tweet also says that he fired Flynn for lying to the FBI. That means that on Feb. 14, 2017 — the day after Flynn resigned — when Trump asked then-FBI Director James Comey to back off on the bureau’s investigation of Flynn, Trump knew Flynn had lied to the FBI about his late-December 2016 conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. In that scenario, Trump’s request that Comey “let this go” is an attempt to obstruct justice.</p> <p>Then on Saturday, Trump’s personal lawyer, John Dowd, claimed he authored the tweet. So, Trump defenders argue, because Trump didn’t write it, Trump didn’t incriminate himself. But that’s tenuous. Because Trump did not disavow or delete this “<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/trump-tweets-official-statements/index.html" target="_blank">official statement by the president of the United States</a>” — a definition that the Trump administration itself provided — the tweet became what lawyers call an “adoptive admission” that binds Trump. In other words, Dowd has created a nightmare for himself and his client.</p> <p>But here’s the other thing: The tweet is riddled with lies.</p> <p> <br /> <strong>The Lies</strong></p> <p>The truth is that Trump didn’t fire Flynn for either of the reasons he gave in his tweet. If he had, Flynn would have left his top national security post weeks earlier. Again, John Dowd’s words put his client in a tough spot. Dowd said <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-lawyer-says-president-knew-flynn-had-given-fbi-the-same-account-he-gave-to-vice-president/2017/12/03/5c59a620-d849-11e7-a841-2066faf731ef_story.html" target="_blank">White House counsel Don McGahn had told Trump in late January</a> that he believed Flynn had probably misled the FBI and lied to Pence about the substance of his calls with Kislyak. But Trump didn’t fire Flynn until <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-department-warned-white-house-that-flynn-could-be-vulnerable-to-russian-blackmail-officials-say/2017/02/13/fc5dab88-f228-11e6-8d72-263470bf0401_story.html" target="_blank"><em>The Washington Post</em> broke the story on Feb. 13</a>. The unavoidable inference is that Trump did not fire Flynn because he lied; he fired him because the media discovered the lie and reported it.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/1trumpkushner.jpg" style="height:312px; width:623px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>The More Important Story</strong></p> <p>The media focus on Trump’s tweet has obscured the key facts underlying Flynn’s guilty plea, and Trump has no incentive to help the public see those facts clearly.</p> <p><a href="https://www.justice.gov/file/1015126/download" target="_blank">In late December 2016</a>, Trump’s national security adviser-designate Mike Flynn — in consultation with a senior official of the Trump transition team later identified as K. T. McFarland — spoke to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about newly imposed US sanctions for election interference. Flynn’s mission was to persuade Kislyak that the Trump administration would reward Putin for a restrained response, and he succeeded.</p> <p>·                 <a href="https://www.justice.gov/file/1015126/download" target="_blank">After his phone call with Kislyak</a>, Flynn “spoke with senior members of the presidential transition team about [his] conversations with the Russian ambassador regarding the US sanctions and Russia’s decision not to escalate.” We don’t know if Flynn’s conversations included Vice President-elect Mike Pence, but Pence was chairman of the transition team.</p> <p>·                 On Jan. 24, 2017, four days after the inauguration, the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/file/1015126/download" target="_blank">FBI interviewed Flynn</a>. He lied, adhering to the White House line that Pence had established: Flynn’s discussion with Kislyak “had nothing whatsoever to do with those sanctions.”</p> <p>·                 On Jan. 26, 2017, <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4668716/sally-yates-warned-white-general-flynn-could-blackmailed" target="_blank">Acting Attorney General Sally Yates told White House counsel Don McGahn</a> that Flynn had lied to the vice president about his conversation with Kislyak and that US intelligence — and the Russians — considered him a blackmail risk.</p> <p>·                 On Jan. 27, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/us/politics/trump-comey-firing.html" target="_blank">Trump invited FBI Director James Comey to dinner</a> in the White House and asked for Comey’s “loyalty.”</p> <p>·                 For more than two weeks, Flynn remained in the nation’s most sensitive national security post until <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-department-warned-white-house-that-flynn-could-be-vulnerable-to-russian-blackmail-officials-say/2017/02/13/fc5dab88-f228-11e6-8d72-263470bf0401_story.html" target="_blank"><em>The Washington Post</em> broke the story</a> about Yates’ warning to McGahn. Then Trump and the White House said that Flynn was fired because he had lied to Pence about his conversations with Ambassador Kislyak.<a href="http://billmoyers.com/topics/democracy-government/">http://billmoyers.com/topics/democracy-government/</a></p> <p>·                 On Feb. 14, 2017 — the day after Flynn’s resignation — Trump told Comey, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/08/james-comey-just-made-it-clear-he-wants-to-expose-president-trump/" target="_blank">Comey took Trump’s request</a> as a directive to terminate the Flynn investigation. Three months later, Trump fired Comey.</p> <p>·            <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2017/live-updates/trump-white-house/james-comey-testimony-what-we-learn/comey-i-was-fired-because-of-the-russia-investigation/" target="_blank">Comey later testified</a>, “It’s my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation. I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted.”</p> <p>Properly considered, Trump’s tweet should bring into clear view the enduring theme of the Trump-Russia investigation: When facing questions related to Russia, Team Trump answers with lies — sometimes layers and layers of them.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><strong>Steven Harper</strong> blogs at <a href="http://thelawyerbubble.com/" target="_blank">The Belly of the Beast</a>, is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University, and contributes regularly to <em>The American Lawyer</em>. He is the author of several books, including <a href="http://www.stevenjharper.com/bio.htm" target="_blank"><em>The Lawyer Bubble — A Profession in Crisis</em></a> and <a href="http://www.stevenjharper.com/contact.htm" target="_blank"><em>Crossing Hoffa — A Teamster’s Story</em></a> (a <em>Chicago Tribune</em> “Best Book of the Year”). Follow him on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/stevenjharper1" target="_blank">@StevenJHarper1</a>.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>This article was originally published in </strong><a href="http://billmoyers.com/story/trump-russia-tweets-incriminating/"><strong>BillMoyers.com</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/donald-trump" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Donald Trump</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/trump-tweets" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">trump tweets</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/michael-flynn" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">michael flynn</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/russia" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Russia</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/election-meddling" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">election meddling</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/jared-kushner" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">jared kushner</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/white-house" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">White House</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/putin" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Putin</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Steven Harper</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Google Images</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sun, 10 Dec 2017 17:10:52 +0000 tara 7850 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/8672-trump-s-incriminating-tweet-and-michael-flynn-s-plea#comments How Social Media Abet the Political Right https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/8634-how-social-media-abet-political-right <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sun, 11/05/2017 - 16:43</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/5socialmedia_pxhere_-_cc.jpg?itok=70s8qFE1"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/5socialmedia_pxhere_-_cc.jpg?itok=70s8qFE1" width="480" height="348" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p> <strong>This article was originally published in <a href="http://billmoyers.com/story/social-media-abet-political-right-not-might-think/">BillMoyers.com</a></strong>.</p> <p>                                                                       </p> <p>So much of the discussion about Donald Trump’s success in politics has focused on how he has mastered social media, particularly Twitter, with his continual tweets that dominate the national conversation while also rousing and even inciting his “alt-right” base. As he told Maria Bartiromo, “Tweeting is like a typewriter — when I put it out, you put it immediately on your show. I mean the other day, I put something out, two seconds later I am watching your show, it’s up.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Trump is, as I have remarked previously, a maestro of social media. He knows how to take advantage of its microtargeting of constituencies as well as its megaphone effect that drowns out more sensible remarks, and he has radically transformed political messaging as a result. We have gone from the TV age of politics to the social media age of distraction politics, and just as John Kennedy was the prime exemplar of the first, Trump is the prime exemplar of the second.</p> <p> </p> <p>But in some respects, this may be among the least of the political impacts of social media. Above and beyond Trump’s tweets and his circumvention of traditional media, there is a much more profound but much subtler effect that plays upon certain psychological and social proclivities in America today and that is changing politics generally and has already changed our political leadership. And while this is by no means Trump-specific, it has a very strong affinity for the right wing. Put more starkly, social media aid and abet the right wing and “alt-right” political figures like Trump, not because the “alt-right” and Trump are better at social media, but because social media have an intrinsic rightish tilt.</p> <p> </p> <p>This isn’t the way most people had imagined it. Social media, devised by techie geniuses incubated at Harvard, MIT and Stanford, were supposed to have a liberal bias. Right-wing technophobes wouldn’t understand it or know how to use it. Its primary consumers would be young folks, who generally lean liberal and Democratic. Social media would provide a national web connecting the bright, the young, the technologically proficient and it would all be serving liberal interests. Like the democratization of media, it would provide the ability for all people to have a platform and freedom of information.</p> <p> </p> <p>But that was either liberal arrogance or wrong-headed idealism. In practice, conservatives proved more adept at using social media than liberals. If you want to read one of the most terrifying but essential political stories, take a look at Alexis Madrigal’s piece in <em>The Atlantic,</em> “What Facebook Did to American Democracy,” which explains how the “alt-right” and its various facilitators (including the Russians and Macedonian teenagers) figured out how to direct ads to niche audiences that would support Trump and provide targeted disinformation that would aid Trump. This was an effort both so massive and so devious that it escapes any capacity to detect it or corral it — basically a separate, virtual reality that overwhelmed reality itself. As Madrigal puts it, “The very roots of the electoral system — the news people see, the events they think happened, the information they digest — had been destabilized.” It is not too much to say that Donald Trump was the result.</p> <p> </p> <p>But as important as this is — and it is very important — it is not what I am talking about when I cite the threats of social media. This kind of manipulation Madrigal describes still operates within the bounds of political hanky panky, albeit with a new, highly sophisticated, epistemological edge. I am talking not about the ways in which social media distort the information we receive, but the ways in which social media draw upon and intensify our whole way of processing information and everything else.</p> <p> </p> <p>It is by now a given that social media have changed and continue to change the way we interact with one another and even with our own selves, the way we use our time, the way we prioritize and value things, the way we respond emotionally, the way we assess information and a thousand other components of our lives. For the post-millennials, nearly everything is refracted through social media, but the spillover effect is huge.</p> <p> </p> <p>There is no room here to enumerate each of these transformations. But a few are worth mentioning because whether we recognize it or not, they can, and I believe do, have vast political implications. To begin with, for all the boasts of connectivity, social media actually isolate us and drive us back into ourselves. Facebook alone may be the largest platform of self-promotion ever devised by humankind, but of course, Facebook is not alone. Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and many others are ostensibly dedicated to sharing when they are really dedicated to solipsism: You are always the star of your page, always centralizing what you are doing. Worse, social media encourages an anonymous meanness that actively splinters us. There probably always were trolls, but they had no platform for their poison. Now they do.</p> <p> </p> <p>Social media have also shunted aside conversation in favor of texting, and in the process, shunted aside face-to-face human communication. MIT social psychologist Sherry Turkle, one of the leading experts on the effects of social media, has even written a book titled <em>Reclaiming Conversation</em>, in which she notes not only how the retreat to the smartphone has atomized us, but also how, through separation and self-centeredness, it has endangered empathy, which is the very core of a civic culture, perhaps even the very core of humanity.</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/1trump_5.jpg" style="height:352px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>And more, Turkle describes how even face-to-face conversations that cannot be held without a smartphone on the table or in one’s hand contribute to a sense of personal devaluation: You aren’t as important as the person I am texting or from whom I am receiving a text. We talk a lot about economic devaluation in America, about how so many in the middle class feel disempowered, but this social devaluation may be no less humiliating.</p> <p> </p> <p>Another technological savant, Eli Pariser, the founder of MoveOn.org and UpWorthy, in his prescient 2011 book, <em>The Filter Bubble</em>, shows how social media, with their plethora of algorithms, give us customized, curated information that never takes us outside ourselves or our own biases, but only reinforces them. In effect, social media create an informational onanism, which, again, destroys a sense of community and circumscribes national conversation every bit as much as it aborts personal conversation. And it does something more: It makes all information that doesn’t conform to one’s biases suspicious. Social media — the “social” here is practically ironic — disallows us from accepting anyone else’s arguments — that is, disallows us from being social. In fact, it delegitimizes not just arguments but all information by seeming to legitimize all information.</p> <p> </p> <p>Perhaps, most important, social media contribute to a sense of profound unhappiness. Sociologist Jean Twenge, writing in <em>The Atlantic</em>, surveyed young smartphone-obsessed consumers — post-millennials whom she labeled “iGen” — and found a decline in most IRL social activities: dating, sex, hanging out with friends, driving, working, family engagement. Many of these iGeners, for all their time “socializing” on their phones, felt left out, lonely. Indeed, nearly everyone on social media is on social media because they are terrified of FOMO — Fear Of Missing Out. Twenge said this generation is on the “brink of the worst mental health crisis in decades.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Meanwhile, another researcher, Donna Freitas, writes in her book <em>The Happiness Effect</em>, that young people using social media frequently talked about their fears of silence and solitude, which compelled them to ponder things they might not feel comfortable pondering, and the pressures to seem to be more than they really were — that is, to live up to the image of themselves they curate online. This, I think, is directly related to the pernicious “winner and loser” syndrome overtaking America that I discussed several weeks back. “Our devices and our compulsive posting and checking are helping us flee ourselves,” Freitas says. We feel the need to be perfect, like everyone else on social media.</p> <p> </p> <p>None of these things is necessarily the result of social media. Rather, one might very well say that social media are a result of them. Anonymity, alienation, dislocation, devaluation, suspicion of solitude and silence, the decline of conversation, undifferentiated information — these had all been identified by Robert Putnam as modern American afflictions in his classic study, <em>Bowling Alone</em>, about the decline of civic engagement, long before the advent of the internet and social media. To many, social media must have seemed like a cure — a way to create community across geographic lines. Instead, it has exacerbated the problems by not only creating more of what it was intended to solve, but by giving an outlet for the anger, resentment, loneliness and unhappiness that roiled beneath the surface. Social media are a mechanism now for channeling our discontents — a kind of virtual Munich beer hall.</p> <p> </p> <p>If you want to read a terrific piece about how Twitter morphed from a way to share to a way to promote hate, read this one.</p> <p> </p> <p>You may begin to see a theme developing here. Self-centeredness and solipsism, division and tribalism, disinformation and misinformation tailored to one’s predispositions, the need for constant stimulation (FOMO) without reflection, bullying against those who disagree, a lack of empathy — these are all hallmarks of the “alt-right” and of the Trump presidency. Trump is not, in reality, their master, though he has learned to use the tools of social media to his benefit. He is actually their product — the product of the social and psychological dynamics that fuel social media. This is why the right was almost destined to use social media more effectively than the left. It was made for social media.</p> <p> </p> <p>In a way, then, social media called forth a Donald Trump. And since there seems no diminution in the breadth or power of social media, nor any way to disarm them, we are stuck with some gigantic, untamable network that, for all its very real benefits, will serve the very forces that divide us and turn us against one another, that delegitimize information and degrade debate, that make us miserable, and that, frankly, make us stupid. Donald Trump may be the first social media president, which is bad enough. But he isn’t likely to be the last.</p> <p> </p> <p>That should bother us every bit as much as the Russians or those Macedonian teenagers, but in this case the problems are inside us.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><strong><em>Neal Gabler is an author of five books and the recipient of two Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, TIME magazine's non-fiction book of the year, USA Today's biography of the year and other awards. He is also a senior fellow at The Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California, and is currently writing a biography of Sen. Edward Kennedy.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>This article was originally published in <a href="http://billmoyers.com/story/social-media-abet-political-right-not-might-think/">BillMoyers.com</a></strong>.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/trump-twitter" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">trump on twitter</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/social-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">social media</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/facebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Facebook</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/instagram" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">instagram</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/trump-tweets" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">trump tweets</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/alt-right" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">alt right</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/right-wing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">right wing</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/conservatives" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">conservatives</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Neal Gabler</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> Google Images (Creative Commons); Pxhere (Creative Commons)</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sun, 05 Nov 2017 21:43:27 +0000 tara 7802 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/8634-how-social-media-abet-political-right#comments