‘Mean Tweets’

By Charles C. W. Cooke

Monday, October 03, 2022

 

As Jay notes, Donald Trump wrote this on his failing TruthSocial platform last week:

People who complain about this sort of behavior are often met with a retort that is supposedly self-evident in its meaning and importance: “mean tweets!” The idea behind this line is that Trump’s presidency was fine, except for the “mean tweets,” which, when compared to the ills we’re suffering under President Biden, ought to fade into obscurity.

 

But this is silly. For a start, “mean tweets” were not the only problem with the way Donald Trump behaved as president, and they’re not the only reason he lost the 2020 election. In effect, “mean tweets” is similar to “tan suit!” — which is what progressives tend reflexively to say whenever President Obama’s scandals are brought up. Obama had many scandals, and his wearing tan suit was not among them. Trump had many terrible moments, and they cannot be usefully reduced to “mean tweets.” His “mean tweets” were certainly a symptom, but they were not the disease.

 

But, beyond that, “mean tweets!” isn’t actually a defense of anything, is it? What, exactly, is Trump achieving by tweeting — well, “truthing” — in that manner? He’s lying: McConnell has not been “approving all of these Trillions of Dollars worth of Democrat sponsored Bills,” and nor does McConnell support the Green New Deal. These are claims that have lost all contact with reality. He’s attacking a guy on his own side — a guy without whom almost all of Trump’s achievements as president would have been impossible. And he’s not only attacking a woman based on her race, he’s attacking a woman who served in his own cabinet. We’re told that Trump “fights.” But what is he “fighting” here? What does this do for Republican voters? Forget, for a moment, that it’s grotesque. What, in a purely amoral sense, is the point?

 

And why would anyone choose to go through it all again? I comprehend the argument that, once Trump has been chosen as the nominee, voters have a binary choice. I also comprehend the argument that, for example, saving unborn children is more important than what Donald Trump says on the Internet. I do not understand why, when one doesn’t have to, one would ever choose to elevate Trump above his current station. At the moment, he really does just have “mean tweets” to offer up. Let’s keep it that way.