The Great Communicator
The Great Manipulator
Given’ ‘em just a taste, or
just doin’ what comes naturally with the tool at hand, Twitter.
Whichever it is, Mr. Trump has mastered Twitter. At his fingers, Twitter has become The Medium for reaching his supporters; making ‘em believe he’s doin’ somethin’ huge; keeping the mainstream media in the palm of his hand; minimizing and controlling available information; and, eliminating substantive reporting.
It reminds me of mortar or artillery harassing fire to keep the enemy pinned down and guessing what’s goin’ on, anxiously occupied for the comin’ attack, if there is one.
That is to say, we are all waiting for the next itty-bit of info that the Meister tosses our way in order to cipher out which way is up.
And, of course there are potential downsides to all this Twitterin', right? Dr. Justin Wolfers, Professor of Economics and Public Policy, University of Michigan, points one out in his Tweet:
As a Michigander, I’ll admit to more than a little distrust when viewin’ Mr. Trump’s tweets claiming a great victory over savin’ 1,000 jobs, since the number of disappeared manufacturing jobs ranges to nearly 5 million over the past 20 years. And, to complicate matters, over the past 25 years, exports have quadrupled and uncompensated productivity has actually skyrocketed with a lot less people workin’. Further, claiming a great victory, without revealing the terms to do so, is not only misleading it is an abysmally microscopic first step compared to losin’ millions.*
*The Carrier Deal Is Great — But Trump Hasn’t Saved Manufacturing Yet, Issie Lapowsky, Wired.com, 30 Nov 2016.
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