Jonathan Chantz
jc209914@ohio.edu
After diligently following the twitter account @realDonaldTrump I have gotten accustomed to Trump tweeting at all hours of the day whatever might come through is head. This last week however Trump has been quite tame by focusing more on promoting himself and letting his followers know where his next rally will be or what television show will be interviewing him. There were also several tweets that included his poll numbers, winning of course, and several more thanking the states and cities that came out and showed their support at his rallies. It seemed to me that @realDonaldTrump had somehow taken my advice and had quit attacking Hillary Clinton and various news stations. Often times when an election candidate (presidential, mayoral, gubernatorial, or the like) attacks it is interpreted as a form of weakness, and that they must knock down their opponent to their own level using mudslinging tactics. Same goes for when a candidate uses a media outlet to defend themselves or their political actions. In a way it is admitting to the allegations of others and often times is better to be ignored, especially you are trying to defend your own characteristics, something Trump has a tough time refraining from.
The only outliers of the positive polls, promotions, and the tweets sending Trumps condolences to the people affected by the terrible events in New York City and Charlotte, NC, and Tulsa, OK, come in a string of back to back tweets on September 17. There is a series of eight tweets attacking Hillary Clinton, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, CNN, New York Times writer Maureen Dowd, and the New York Times as a whole. I have reason to believe these and a few more of Trumps 65 tweets, giving Trump the benefit of the doubt, where written by the Trump man himself. I referenced David Robinson’s article in the Washington Post, where he wrote that there are two writers for Trump’s twitter account. One writer using an iPhone, supposedly a campaign staff member, and a Samsung Galaxy belonging to Trump. I did not use the devices as my basis of thought but instead analyzed the tweets by cross referencing the buzzwords that Robinson had listed that Trump had frequently used. I found Trump often likes to use negative words in his own tweets while his ghostwriter is more prone to using hashtags and including some sort of visual element to the posts.
Any tweet by Trump concerning Hillary Clinton will always refer to her as “Lyin Hillary” or “Crooked Hillary” as seen in his tweet, Crooked Hillary wants to take your 2nd Amendment rights away. Will guns be taken from her heavily armed Secret Service detail? Maybe not!”
Wacky and crazy were used to describe Dowd, who had recently released her book, “The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics,” which criticized both Clinton and Trump for engaging in “politainment” and calling the campaigns madness.
Trump called Gates “dopey” and his time as Defense Secretary a “total disaster,” after Gates wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, calling Trump, “beyond repair,” when it comes to his national security policy. “He is stubbornly uninformed about the world and how to lead our country and government, and temperamentally unsuited to lead our men and women in uniform. He is unqualified and unfit to be commander-in-chief.”
It appears to me Trump’s campaign staff must have given back the reins of his twitter account for a day and he took it for a joyride. After the 17th, there is little if any attacks on Hillary or any major news organizations. It will be interesting to see as we near the election if Trump will have more access to his account or if he will let the professionals handle his content.
No comments:
Post a Comment