Red/Blue America: Thoughts matter, and Trump’s tweets show us his thinking

Donald Trump flew to the presidency, in part, on the strength of his oft-outrageous and provocative Twitter feed, which he used effectively to pick fights with critics and the media.The election appears not to have curbed his penchant for social media: He’s still being outrageous and provocative. He’s still picking fights with critics and the media.And those pronouncements often make big headlines, but some observers say the media should stop covering Trump’s tweets so obsessively.Should the president spend so much time on social media? How much attention does it deserve? This would be a good time to say, “Let Donald be Donald,” except Americans have no indication that Donald can be anything other than Donald.
That said, he’s going to tweet, and the presidency shouldn’t be confined to 18th century modes of communication. Twitter is a part of how we live now.But Trump should probably give more care to crafting his tweets. And the media should be more thoughtful in how they cover him.Why? The president’s words matter. They can shake markets or put countries on a war footing and they can do that even if the president is merely horsing around. That’s why a whole information infrastructure has grown up around the Oval Office - not just to communicate what the president wants communicated but also to avoid accidentally communicating ideas the president doesn’t want communicated.So it matters when Trump tweets that flag burning should be punished by a loss of citizenship.It matters when he bashes journalists who don’t follow his favored storylines.And it matters when he makes wild, unsupported accusations that millions of people voted illegally - against him.Those tweets hint at an authoritarian personality and warn the American people they should be on guard for their liberty under the new president. To purposefully ignore these comments is to let our vigilance ebb.Trump’s fiercest critics say his tweets are a distraction, that the news media should ignore the president-elect’s pronouncements and focus instead on areas of substance - the conflicts of interest between his business holdings and his presidential duties, for example.The underlying presumption, though, is that the news media can’t walk and chew gum. In this age of diminished journalistic resources, in which every newspaper seems to go through a round of buyouts and layoffs every year, that presumption is understandable.But one area of American life that’s not going under-covered? The White House.So it’s possible - necessary, actually - to pay attention both to what President-elect Trump says and what he does. There’s no need to choose between the two. Joel Mathis is an award-winning writer in Kansas. Reach him at joelmmathis@gmail.com.Donald Trump flew to the presidency, in part, on the strength of his oft-outrageous and provocative Twitter feed, which he used effectively to pick fights with critics and the media.The election appears not to have curbed his penchant for social media: He’s still being outrageous and provocative. He’s still picking fights with critics and the media.And those pronouncements often make big headlines, but some observers say the media should stop covering Trump’s tweets so obsessively.Should the president spend so much time on social media? How much attention does it deserve?This would be a good time to say, “Let Donald be Donald,” except Americans have no indication that Donald can be anything other than Donald.
That said, he’s going to tweet, and the presidency shouldn’t be confined to 18th century modes of communication. Twitter is a part of how we live now.But Trump should probably give more care to crafting his tweets. And the media should be more thoughtful in how they cover him.Why? The president’s words matter. They can shake markets or put countries on a war footing and they can do that even if the president is merely horsing around. That’s why a whole information infrastructure has grown up around the Oval Office - not just to communicate what the president wants communicated but also to avoid accidentally communicating ideas the president doesn’t want communicated.So it matters when Trump tweets that flag burning should be punished by a loss of citizenship.It matters when he bashes journalists who don’t follow his favored storylines.And it matters when he makes wild, unsupported accusations that millions of people voted illegally - against him.Those tweets hint at an authoritarian personality and warn the American people they should be on guard for their liberty under the new president. To purposefully ignore these comments is to let our vigilance ebb.Trump’s fiercest critics say his tweets are a distraction, that the news media should ignore the president-elect’s pronouncements and focus instead on areas of substance - the conflicts of interest between his business holdings and his presidential duties, for example.The underlying presumption, though, is that the news media can’t walk and chew gum. In this age of diminished journalistic resources, in which every newspaper seems to go through a round of buyouts and layoffs every year, that presumption is understandable.But one area of American life that’s not going under-covered? The White House.So it’s possible - necessary, actually - to pay attention both to what President-elect Trump says and what he does. There’s no need to choose between the two.Joel Mathis is an award-winning writer in Kansas. Reach him at joelmmathis@gmail.com.