Are His Tweets A Stroke of Genius Or Will They Lead To Disaster?
President Donald Trump is the first U.S. President to rule and rile using social media. His tweet storms are legendary. His personal attacks on friend and foe alike are maddening. Half the country laughs while the other half foams at the mouth. The next day the half split may reverse itself, the foamers laughing and the laughing screeching. Is the President mad? Some psychiatrists have gone on CNN to say the guy has syndromes galore. Others think Trump is actually a genius, using tweets to rule, to ridicule his enemies, to taunt foreign leaders (as well as his own cabinet), and shock everyone else by his technique of twitter voodoo that causes any who reads it without laughing into coming down with a disease called Trump Derangement Syndrome.
One thing is absolutely certain. Day after day, and usually late into the night-time talk shows, all the attention is on HIM. The Orange Eminence rules the roost, he is the head rooster, and all the chickens are constantly clucking about him. The amount of nasty remarks piles up every day. “Listen to all these LIES he has told, Just This Morning”, blasts out Morning Joe, his stone face actually showing some twisted emotion. And then there’s nightingale Rachel who blathers on for seemingly hours detailing everything wrong that the Orange Man managed to do during the day, starting at 4am tweet time and continuing non-stop until he disappears into his man cave. “And did you hear that he actually wants to buy GREENLAND? *sputter sputter*
Years ago, when I worked at a national public relations firm, there was a mantra that was something like “Say anything you want about me, just spell my name right.” This was sort of a smart alack response to attacks on political figures. But there is actually some truth to it. The repetition of a name 1000 times a day on TV and Radio, does grind into the minds of the masses. What the context was, all the other words, can be forgotten because there’s a huge confusing amount of chatter and accusations that nobody can begin to recall a week later. What sticks are the words “Donald Trump”.
What is going to be crucial to the next election cycle is what the impact of Trump’s constant turning of the spotlight on himself. Will the masses of voters, bombarded every minute of every day with Trump News, even remember 10 percent of the bad stuff? Will they just vote for him because of name recognition? Travel around on a bus and listen to the conversations. Amazingly, most have nothing to do with politics. Many individuals just tune out the political chatter, “it’s just politics.” They tire easily of the constant bickering, and it’s easy to say that the Dems are saying bad things about Trump because they are Dems. And the Elephants are chopping the Donkeys because they have Big Trunks with Tusks and that’s what they do. It all reminds me that my boss at the PR firm, the great Hal Evry, said clearly and often, that we need to appeal to the Average American who has the mind of an eleven year old, and that’s max eleven.
Trump seems to know this, and to top it off he has a blast furnace rudeness that has great mass appeal. Archie Bunker has finally made it to the White House. A certain percent love that off-the-wall, insult everyone mentality. And many folks love the fact that Trumps speech writers, if there are any, all seem to have worked at Mad Magazine in the 1960s.
And then, there’s the really personal touch:
- He seems to never tire of giving someone on his hit list a derogatory nick name. “Cooked Hillary” is one that comes to mind. And if he is too busy to formulate a nickname then he sticks a moniker on someone, like his Attorney General, Sessions, “He was a weak man, very weak.”
- At his rallies, he invites audience participation by inventing clever slogans that his followers can chant when he triggers it. They can’t seem to wait, they squirm in their seats until their moment in the spotlight when they can yell out “Build That Wall”, or “Lock Her Up”. Back in the day, the rule of thumb was that a political speech should be no longer than 10 minutes, because after that the audience just zones out. Trump has knocked that rule upside down. His rallies, his speeches go on for hours. The crowd sticks around for the fun, watching the few protesters being humiliated and thrown out. “Get him out of here”, says Trump. “Out, Out, Out” chants the crowd. The working class crowd has a great time. It’s better than sitting at home watching TV, in fact, you get to be on TV, chanting, whooping and yelling! It’s a blast. It’s MAD TV.
So the answer to the question will be revealed at the next Presidential election. Will the voters remember all the lies, all the bad things? Or will they just remember that name, brainwashed into their eleven year old minds. It may be hard for them to vote against someone who is Larger Than Life! He must be almost a king, the chosen one, because everyone talks about him day and night.
Maybe some folks should remember that silence can be golden. If nobody ever mentions your name, do you exist?