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Commentary
Pay no mind to the former president in your social media feed
In the early days of the Trump presidency, I worked at a public radio station in Kansas City, Missouri — the news broadcast over loudspeakers wherever I went. On my way to meetings, during quick jaunts to the printer, even — modesty be damned — on visits to the restroom. The day’s headlines provided a constant soundtrack, and that soundtrack was dominated by Donald Trump.
My coworker Jen and I developed a particular form of gallows humor to get through the constant barrage. We’d walk over to each other’s desks and deliver the opening clause of a formulaic Trump story we never wanted to hear again. I've forgotten most variations on our running gag, but one Jen delivered with a pained expression sticks with me: "In a series of early morning tweets..."
We did eventually get a respite from the tweets: Trump lost access to Twitter and Facebook in Jan. 2021. By then, he’d been spreading dangerous misinformation about the 2020 election in violation of both companies’ policies for months without serious intervention. On Twitter, his baseless rants about election fraud were accompanied by tepid footnotes letting users know the claims had been “disputed.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t until the violent Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol that both platforms revoked Trump’s access.
Equally unfortunate: The reprieve from Trump’s missives may soon come to an end.
In November, Twitter CEO Elon Musk reactivated Trump’s account (though he has yet to use it — here’s the last tweet on his timeline).
Last week, Meta announced that the former president would regain access to Facebook and Instagram. For now, posting on either platform would violate Trump’s exclusive contract with Truth Social, his own social media company. But that contract expires in June.
I don’t think reactivating Trump’s accounts is the right decision, but what I’m really thinking about is how the rest of us can handle what we’ll predictably encounter when and if Trump starts tweeting and posting. After all, we’ve been here before.
If Trump returns to Twitter we’ll be contending not just with his tweets, but with a media ecosystem seemingly duty-bound to report each one as news. Those of us provoked by the most outrageous or offensive of these missives will be drawn into a vortex of hostile discourse, treating Twitter and Facebook as the battlegrounds where the fight for American democracy could be won.
The fight could well be lost online. But social media platforms aren’t built for winning. They’re not engineered for the resolution of conflict, or the triumph of sound ideas. They’re like Pac Man: The whole point is to keep you playing.
[Social media platforms] are not engineered for the resolution of conflict, or the triumph of sound ideas. They’re like Pac Man: The whole point is to keep you playing.
The authors of “Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending American Democracy” call the feedback loop between social media, conventional media and politics a “no-win game for democracy.” That’s because the power bestowed by social media comes from strong reactions. Fighting Trump online doesn’t weaken him there or elsewhere. It strengthens him.
The only way to win is to disengage.
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy using social media — more, quite honestly, than I’d care to admit. On a good day, I craft tweets to sharpen my own thoughts as I sit with news events that defy logic.
But fine-tuning an argument on social media is mostly just an exercise, and one unlikely to prepare you for a productive conversation with a real live person on the other side of a major political or cultural divide.
Last summer, my husband and I hired a house painter. He was an older guy who wore plain white t-shirts that cradled his paunch. Every morning, he hauled ladders and buckets and tarps from his silver pickup truck, doling out grandfatherly pleasantries as he went. One morning, while brushing my teeth, I heard Sean Hannity's voice outside my bathroom window, shouting about "illegal aliens" using "your tax money" for abortions. I slowed my brushing and peered out the window. It was the house painter, blaring AM radio so he could hear it on his ladder.
I know one thing for sure, fighting Trump on the platforms that enable him is a losing proposition.
For all my argument-crafting on Twitter, I had no idea what to say to this fellow, a guy with whom I’d established a friendly enough rapport to stand a chance of being taken in good faith. Weeks passed, Hannity blared and I said nothing.
Then one day, we started talking about the weather. High temperatures had slowed him down. I assured him I understood; it would be dangerous to work in the hot midday sun. As I turned to go inside, he told me not to go thinking the heat had anything to do with climate change. I looked back at him. He brought up politics, not me. If I wanted to say something, this was my moment.
My face must have betrayed me because he added that in the 1970s they called it global warming: it wasn't real then, and it isn't real now. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out, so I closed it. I must have looked like a stunned fish in a bowl. When words did come they were simple and meek: "I guess I hope you're right.”
If the inadequacy of this response frustrates you, don’t worry, it frustrates me too.
I think about that moment a lot. I could have jumped on Twitter and told the story to the community I’d built there. We might have enjoyed a cathartic laugh while crafting the perfect comeback. But in person, the uselessness of a verbal takedown is glaringly obvious. And so is the lack of empathy behind it.
Who am I talking to on Twitter, and how useful is it? Where is my attention being dragged by my outrage? How is that misguiding my energy, training me in a form of discourse that doesn't translate when I need it most?
Online interactions reward escalation and intensification, but for a real conversation to succeed, de-escalation is actually key. You need patience; people don’t abandon deeply held beliefs in an instant, so you probably won’t walk away victorious. Not to mention the importance of body language, something we don’t practice when arguing online. Angry typing leaves us ill-equipped.
I know one thing for sure, fighting Trump on the platforms that enable him is a losing proposition. A sick burn in response to Donald Trump only boosts him algorithmically.
It also does nothing to change the conditions that made a Trump presidency possible in the first place.
The grievances Trump manipulates on social media don’t go away when he’s not there, just like the threat to democracy that culminated in the Jan. 6 riot didn’t end when he left the White House. And, it doesn't prepare us in any way for a conversation with a real human being — someone like my house painter, who just shows up.
I’d rather craft an argument for him than something zingy for a larger audience.
If Trump reemerges on Twitter and Facebook, I probably won’t abandon the platforms altogether — but I’ll spend a lot less time there. I plan to keep my energy focused on my agenda, not his.
Twitter and Meta may be willing to give a demagogue 24/7 access to my thoughts and energy, but I don’t have to go along with that plan. And neither do you.
