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Op-Ed: Threats, lies and executive orders — The Trump presidency

Social media company Twitter has long been Trump’s soapbox – his direct voice to the people, he claims. The trouble is this – what people are reading in Trump’s tweets has gone from the absurd to the surreal and outlandish.

Just last Sunday, Trump spent most of his day on Twitter, tweeting over 100 times, most of his tweets and retweets centering around unsubstantiated claims about the investigation into collusion between his campaign and Russia. In the meantime, the death toll from the coronavirus stood at 80,000.

And always one to heap accolades on himself, perhaps because the rest of the world won’t, Trump tweeted he was “getting great marks” for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, despite the US having the highest death toll in the world.

We won’t mention how Trump lost it during the impeachment investigation and trial – That was a fiasco of hundreds of tweets, accusing everyone of doing him wrong in some way or another. However, even then, Trump’s vindictiveness was apparent in how quickly he handed out retribution after the trial, firing numerous appointees for their lack of loyalty.

Like a king on his throne, if anyone appeared to go against him and his beliefs, Trump wielded the “you’re fired” card. The point is this – Trump uses Twitter to shift the story to his liking, regardless of if it is true, and this is what happened to those in his administration who testified, under oath at the hearings.

We are now seeing the president’s rage, ineptitude, and lack of self-control peak again. With the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was obvious the Trump administration was ill-prepared to handle it. Not only did Trump downplay the seriousness of the crisis, but he wanted to control the narrative – as seen in his taking over the Task Force news conferences.

And again, when things in the news cycle went against him, he tweeted a barrage of nonsensical tweets that had nothing to do with what was happening, tweeting out threats, innuendos and blatantly fake news. As Business Insider puts it: “In Trump’s world, you distract from one problem — impeachment, poor ratings, the Mueller Report — by creating another (on Twitter).”

So now we are all awaiting an executive order from our Twitter-in-chief. This one will condemn social media companies, like Twitter and Facebook. The president is making a retaliatory move because he is upset that Twitter flagged two of his tweets about mail-in ballots and voter fraud with a fact-check warning.

Trump tweeted on Wednesday night: “Big Tech is doing everything in their very considerable power to CENSOR in advance of the 2020 Election. If that happens, we no longer have our freedom. I will never let it happen! They tried hard in 2016 and lost. Now they are going absolutely CRAZY. Stay Tuned!!!”

Here is what is particularly frightening about Trump and his tweets – People close to the president are of the opinion that he genuinely believes many of the more conspiratorial things he tweets – including debunked theories about his predecessor. Now that is scary.

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We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of our dear friend Karen Graham, who served as Editor-at-Large at Digital Journal. She was 78 years old. Karen's view of what is happening in our world was colored by her love of history and how the past influences events taking place today. Her belief in humankind's part in the care of the planet and our environment has led her to focus on the need for action in dealing with climate change. It was said by Geoffrey C. Ward, "Journalism is merely history's first draft." Everyone who writes about what is happening today is indeed, writing a small part of our history.

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