As several pundits have pointed out, Donald Trump isn’t spending more time on Twitter than he is on the coronavirus because he’s trying to distract from the 100,000 who have died on his watch. Trump isn’t strategic. This is just where he puts his values. That’s why over the course of the morning, Trump tweeted threats against social media, lies about President Obama, more lies about Joe Biden, and attacks on the Mueller investigation. That’s what he cares about. The only time the two Vietnam War’s worth of Americans he’s done in through incompetence crossed Trump’s mind was when he paused to attack Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's social distancing guidelines.
Donald Trump is a troll who is only concerned about keeping his name at the top of the news no matter how many people have to die to keep it there. Literally. And Twitter is his main tool for trolling.
But sometimes, that tool can be flipped around to smack Trump right in the pumpkin. And Joe Biden did exactly that.
Biden’s tweet was short and simple. He merely directed attention to two other tweets that happened on the same date back in October.
On that day, Biden was warning that America was unprepared to face exactly the crisis that we’re now experiencing. Trump was concerned about the difficulty of mastering the phone screen swipe.
But again, this isn’t really a matter of guile on the part of either man—both spent that day talking about what they felt was important. Biden was concerned about the health of the nation and its citizens. Trump was concerned about the tool he uses to spew hatred.
And, to be fair, that’s not the only thing Donald Trump tweeted on that day. Nope. In fact, Trump tweeted 47 times on that day on topics as central to the Republic as his next rally, his last rally, his latest appearance on Hannity, multiple threats to sue Adam Schiff, and especially all the great things he’s done for the African American community. How’s that last one going, by the way?
Biden’s tweet was both timely and on target, identifying a gaping hole that Trump had allowed to form in the nation’s security. Trump’s tweets were about stroking his own ego. Anyone looking at how we got here could learn a lot from looking at those two tweets.