When Donald Trump first declared his presidential bid, the Internet’s Content Farmers aggregated the real estate magnate and reality star’s most “awkward,” “ludicrous,” and “irrational” tweets, perhaps predicting his loose online record would come back to haunt him. Trump has succeeded in large part because he has retained his vulgar vigour and translated it into the political showground. The existence of Mr. Donald Trump on social media has engrossed attention worldwide since he joined Twitter in March 2009. He has frequently used Twitter to comment on politicians and celebrities, and he relied on Twitter expressively to communicate during the 2016 United States Presidential election. The attention on Trump’s Twitter activity has significantly increased since he was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States and continued to post contentious opinions and statements. Many of the assertions made by Trump on his Twitter account have been proven to be false.
Trump was branded as “possibly the first ‘social media’ and ‘reality TV’ president” in an article by Van Jones on CNN’s website in October 2015. Past presidents including John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Barack Hussein Obama had made a significant impact by means of communicating their message through new media channels, radio, television and the internet respectively. Social media was an important part of Trump’s presidential election campaign in 2016, and was one of the reasons he was eventually elected. In 2016, his Twitter following surpassed that of his Republican rivals and approached that of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump claimed before his inauguration that he would scale back his usage of social media networks such as Face-book and Twitter. He also stated that social media made it possible to win the elections with less money spent. Nevertheless, by May 2017, he had a social media audience of over 45 million followers. This has allowed Trump to “sideline mainstream media” and dramatically swing his presidential means of communication with the public.
In 2009, marketing staffer Peter Costanzo proposed to Donald Trump that social media could be used to draw attention to his then-current book, “Think Like a Champion”. Swayed by Costanzo, Trump joined Twitter in March 2009 with username @realDonaldTrump. The first tweet was sent on May 4, 2009, advertising his upcoming appearance on Late Show with David Letterman. Trump did not write many of the early tweets sent under his account. Initially, messages were drafted by Costanzo, with Trump providing his approval before they were sent. For the first two years, tweets written by Trump included the phrase “from Donald Trump” to distinguish them from those written by his staff, but by about June 2011, as Trump’s use of the platform amplified, those identifying labels disappeared. A January 2016 review found that one in every eight Trump Twitter posts “was a personal insult of some kind. As of August 2017, he had insulted 359 people, places, and things on Twitter, ranging from politicians to journalists and news outlets to countries including targeting private citizens.
The divisive billionaire who happens not be a professional politician has had a lot to deal with on daily basis in terms of scandals and blunders. His presidential swagger is not impressive enough to large number of Americans. He loves twitter and tweets daily where insults were directed at his perceived enemies especially journalists and politicians of the opposition hue. Trump loves the limelight and imperially craves attention. As a self-made billionaire, he appears unafraid of any challenge and unfazed by any controversy. Now, pundits gaze upon his social media strategy with grudging respect. President Donald Trump of the United States of America is a magniloquent megalomaniac who does not suffer fools gladly. His election to the White House sent shock waves across the world. The touted favourite, Hillary Clinton, lost out due to many factors American including the alleged Russian electoral cyber meddlesomeness. And upon assuming office, taking power from the charismatic Barack Obama, President Trump had set out to dismantle whatever the first black President had done in power. Suddenly Obama became a ‘bad’ President in the skewed eyes of the confused Trump team including every substantial accomplishment of Obama came under attack
Donald Trump single-handedly got himself elected as President despite the clear choice of the establishment. As an anti-establishment, he went about the campaign for the White House with proposed policies and programs that could, upon execution, cause more trouble than preferring solution to the American waning greatness — something he had used successfully in his “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan. He had declared his intention, then, to build an imposing wall on the Mexican border post to prevent deviants from gaining easy access to the American ‘dream’. He promised to dismantle the ‘Obamacare’; to undo the Iranian nuclear deal, the restored relationship with Cuba, the Paris environmental accord among others. Though he has suffered series of defeat on almost all these radical ‘reforms’ he has refused to back down. His first defeat came when few weeks to his presidency he had decreed that nationals of some seven Muslim nations would be barred from entering the US for their links to terrorism. Initially, it caused uproar across the United States but that edict was challenged in the law courts and ruling after ruling faulted the presidential directive thus rendering it nugatory. Also, the ‘Obamacare’ is giving him more trouble than anticipated to repeal or modify. North Korea and her scoundrel young leader is testing nuclear weapons and defying both Trump and the entire free world. No wall has emerged thus far in the US/Mexico border since his inauguration as president of the United States.
However, the good old fellow Donald Trump, as earlier elaborated loves twitter and the social media. He tweets daily and prefers tweeting than the traditional press briefings or conferences. He has defended this preference on more than one occasion and told off those complaining of his style and method. Trump courts controversy and relishes in drawing same to himself. He ‘hates’ the vociferous free press in the US and has attacked some powerful media organizations in the past accusing them of propagating “fake news”. This is about the first time in the history of America that a President who loathes the fourth estate of the realm could be defensive despite the enduring low popularity rating and many presidential gaffes. The Trump presidency is grossly an incompetent leadership. He is simply temperamentally and mentally incompetent to lead a great and powerful nation like America. All he is telling America is to trust him, but how do you trust a weather cock and a pathological fibber who can easily flip his reasoning capacity at any point in time and reverse himself without any acknowledgment or regret.
When he flops on any promise, he quickly affirms victory and moves on because he creates his own reality and illusion and that is the way he has operated for much of his adult life as a 5-year-old baby diaper entombed in a 71-year-old’s body. Having power like a lion does not mean that you can use that power like a lion does in the wild. A good leader does not start his tenure by trashing and totally discrediting his predecessors in office, only to go back to what they did without any remorse or self-pity. You would have thought he was going to summarily withdraw American troops from Afghanistan after all his condemnations of American policy in that country before he got elected but he has proven over-time to be the proverbial dog going back to its vomit.
With more than 6 months into the presidency, he is still behaving like the crooked, unrepentant, diabolical businessman and risk taker that he was before contesting for the presidency of the United States of America. Frankly, Mr. Trump is so terribly troubled by guilty conscience, if he has any, that he cannot get himself out of the siege mentality he put himself into by pulling off one of the worst upset victories in American election history by subterfuge. He sees every opposition to his victory as a plan to delegitimize his presidency and as fake news, which was the major plank of his victory in that election. Donald Trump indulged in tarnishing the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN, the most trusted names in news, as ‘fake news’ just because they totally disagree with his view of the world. Graciously, Americans do not sleep with their heads turned upside down. True journalism has created room for a second opinions, but Donald Trump is trying to obliterate that room by those who vehemently oppose his myopic blue-print and perverted ideologies.
He behaves as if he is still actively at war with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton who was robbed of her victory by a devious Donald Trump working hand in hand with Moscow to make Trump president because Russian President Vladimir Putin saw Trump as the weakest link in the American chain and the best possible way to reverse some of the traumatic losses Russia has endured in her endless rivalry and competition with America. Donald Trump began his presidency by promising America the moon, but has so far woefully deliver failures, bigotry and division among Americans. President Trump would bold-faced tell anyone who cares to listen he is the greatest achiever and problem solver in the world who can make an omelette without breaking an egg.
His Presidential reign started with taking sides with Russia against NATO and the European Union. He pretended to be a dignified Christian to vilify and blackmail the Islamic World and people of other color. When that campaign blew up in his face, he shifted his emphasis to divide and rule by declaring war he can never win with Islam and by siding with the Wahhabi sect of Islam led by Saudi Arabia against the Shiites led by Iran. It is a rivalry that has existed for centuries but Donald Trump in his delusion thinks that taking sides is going to advance his own agenda to change the pillars and the fundamentals that have held the World together under his predecessors. He had to demonize North Korea for aspiring to become a nuclear nation as a leveller to guarantee her own security and sovereignty as a nation. His policy is to incite China, Japan and South Korea against North Korea to perpetually keep the Korean Peninsula in a state of war to make way for the American domination of the Pacific. In doing so he completely forgets that China as the dominant world power in that region has her own economic self-interest which does not want to see a crippled and defeated North Korea which would give America a clear edge in the Korean Peninsula and thereby constitute a bigger threat to China down the road if not immediately.
A crippled North Korea could lead to the influx of refugees to China at an alarming rate that could be very detrimental to China economy and her progress as the next super power in that region and the world. Trump calls himself a vicar of peace and justice but he is truly a divider per excellence and a great threat to world peace. His new policy in the South Asian region with some emphasis on Afghanistan is like torrential gasoline on the region and looking for a match to ignite an inferno by inciting India against Pakistan both rival and nuclear power nations. By trying to lure India into the Afghanistan quagmire, is a clear indication that Donald Trump is gambling with the world peace. Afghanistan is not just called the “grave of the imperialist” as Russia with all her military forte and power tried to subjugate Afghanistan but it had to beat a retreat with ignominy.
The most disturbing aspect of the Trump’s so-called agenda in Afghanistan is his abrasive assertion that “Trump is there to win”. He gleefully declares he is not there for nation building but how do you help Afghanistan mend and heal without some element of nation-building strategy. Much of what Donald Trump assertions are easier said than done. Lindsey Graham and Paul Ryan believe the so-called Trump Doctrine which are apparently condition-based because much of what he is saying are contradictory in practical terms, and would prove totally unfeasible. Trump is setting no time frame for American disengagement and no fixed number of troops in a country that is war-weary and citizens that quickly turns against those in authority when the coffins start returning home draped with American flags. The average American like most human’s wants to be in Heaven nevertheless detest death but there is no way to tarry in Heaven without primarily embracing death. When the aces are down, America would simply beat a retreat pretty much like the Russians did when they were faced a similar cul-de-sac in Afghanistan or similar conundrum in Vietnam. President Trump told a bogus lie when he said severally “Americans have never lost a war’. They sure did in Vietnam and even arguably so in Japan which they had to rebuild after destroying the country. The same thing could presumably happen to North and South Korea if America succeeds in destroying it like they did to Germany after the Second World War. Those who fail to learn from History are doomed to fail. The so-called Trump Doctrine is a time bomb waiting to explode. It is not a strategic or realistic doctrine but based on quicksand.
Finally, the virtuous part is that President Trump owns the Afghanistan policy right now and he would have no one to blame if things turn obnoxious as they sure will. The scary part is that Donald Trump always finds some way to make others culpability but himself when things get horrible. A good leader takes responsibility for his actions to regroup and re-strategize. His Defence Secretary General Mathis, and brain box dodged the bullet when he tactically forced his boss to own up to the Afghanistan policy and to make it impossible for Donald Trump to put all the blame on the Generals if things do not work out as envisioned. Mr. Trump is not that kind of a trustworthy leader, He remains a pathological liar so temperamentally unqualified to lead the best experiment in human history and the most powerful nation on Earth, the United States of America.
© 2023 Nigerian Canadian Newspaper Canada. Powered by NASCI.
