#TrumpTweets shred the script

I’m 21-year-old college student, so the stereotype is that I’m constantly staring at phone, scanning Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat because I can’t be bothered with the real-life happenings going on around me. Sometimes (i.e. often) that’s true. Twitter is where I go to get my news, so I settled in for the “Is social media ruining politics?” panel at Yahoo’s Digital Democracy conference at Drake University on Thursday.

Right away, Nicholas Carr, author of The Class Cage: How Our Computers Are Changing Us, spoke about how he views Donald Trump as the candidate made for social media. Carr talked about how Trump’s bombastic tweets are “cutting through the noise.” It’s true. What he posts grabs more media coverage than other politicians’ frankly boring tweets that likely center around policy.

“Social media rewards novelty and the unexpected, and I think that’s why someone like Donald Trump, who has five times as many Twitter followers as any other Republican candidate — why he is so ideally suited to this shift,” Carr said. “He really doesn’t have a script.”

Example:

It makes you ask, “Can he really post stuff like this?” So far, he can. Today’s social media, cutting the time of a thought transforming into a post to mere seconds, is the enabler for Trump.

“It changes the nature of discourse,” Carr said. “It changes what we expect.”

Now, we’re starting to expect #TrumpTweets, which is so much of a stark contrast to this necessary boredom:

Zzzzzzz. But Rubio has to fund his campaign somehow. Trump, as a billionaire, doesn’t need to ask for contributions. Trump, from what I can tell, also avoids policy tweets. Why? My guess is because they’re uninteresting, easy to scroll past. When you call your competitor a lightweight, it gets noticed. He gets coverage by typing out 140 characters. No event appearance needed.

Carr mentioned how social media is the next big platform for presidents. He noted how FDR had radio and Kennedy had television. In his book, he handcuffs Trump to social media. Television, radio and, yes, even newspapers are still around, though. Candidates still have to buy TV ads; they still meet with editorial boards. The campaigns have to focus their time on both old and new media. People consume news from both, so the best strategies effectively inundate each platform and, to steal the cliche, “get their message out.”

With social media and people like me using it to get their news quickly, campaigns’ messages get shorter. A large volume of people don’t take significant time out of their day to review the day’s campaign news. With Trump, you can immediately find out what he’s up to in 140-character bursts, and his provocative tweets are often memorable. He’s easy for new consumers to find, so maybe Carr is right. Maybe Donald Trump’s got it figured out. Script be dammed.