All of the atrocious social media trolls combined cannot compare to the Twitter candidacy of Donald Trump. It is an historic campaign in the U.S. for many reasons, but never before has social media been a factor, nor was it thought possible for the discourse to reach such accessible levels. By accessible, I mean of course that the bar is low – 140 characters to be exact.
Each tweet is breathlessly reported by media. The media, which used to cover carefully constructed press reports, now reports lame burns the candidate lobbed. When Trump tweets, he reaches the people who are only going to read 140 characters…And who can’t see that the message is already 140 characters too long.
Is this the wave of the future? Will campaigning in person be unnecessary in coming years? On the bright side, the directions to the local polling place may be longer than the average attention span with Trump supporters…Keep ’em bored and confused!