The Tweeting Trump Tragedy
Ten to fifteen years ago it was absolutely unbelievable to make a political statement as a politician via internet. How comes that nowadays we can read all about wars, laws, society, problems or economy posted as short postings on online social networks as Facebook or Twitter? Let us think about ex-president Obama, posting private moments of himself and his wife, or the german Green Party politician Cem Özdemir, who twitters about current events, announces something about his work or gives statements about the other political parties. And what about the german ex-CDU politician Erika Steinbach? She was posting about her leaving her party. The german citizens can read almost every single statement of (or about other) politicians online.
Check out for instance the following internet source, where you can read everything politicians are twittering directly out of the Bundestag:
I think it is nice that citizens have direct access to the statements of politicians. I think that those politicians are just trying to be modern. Of course it is even easier to write ones oppinion online, since via internet access to many people during a short time period is possible. Politicians want to be as close as possible to their voters and the people want to get their information as fast as possible since now everyone wants and needs to be always and everywhere up to date. But of course those social networks were not created to be used as a news services. They are meant to be social networks which are considered to nothing else than to provide news about vips.
During the last year’s American election the republican candidate Trump campaigned mainly via Twitter like no one before him:
On Twitter he posts his oppinion about all occuring events, statements of other politicians or announces his latest economic business plan for the US.
I think that it is a good idea to publish political, social and economical statements on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, too, since there everybody has direct access into politics and current events, even teenagers or people who don’t have access to education, or people living in smaller villages. It is easier today to be informed about what’s going on in the world, just consider many germans being well informed about Trumps politics because of him using social networks.
But every medal has its flipside. Having the American president posting every twenty minutes the latest ideas that come to his mind provokes a rough climate between the US and other countries, consider the way he tweets about Germans and their economy, or criticizes the Nato.
Donald Trump’s foreign policy is not appropriate, since he has nothing else to do than to slander verbally. It seems as if he publishes all that comes to his mind, for example building up the wall between the US and Mexico, forgetting the fact that many naiv people might be influenced in a racist manner (for instance the typical Trump voter: over 50 years old, white, male, laborer…).
Concerning fake news, I think that it might be easy to fake the typical Trump-Twitter-Postings and to abuse Twitter and other social networks to spread racial agitation…
All in all I think that it would be better if Trump would rather be interviewed in appropriated journals, news channels and not post (racist) political statements on Twitter.
