Trump's Twitter habit destabilizes the world
Like the rage of Achilles, Donald Trump’s tweets are sudden, explosive and freighted with tragedy. Thursday brought the most foreboding yet. “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow......”
And then: nothing. For a full nine minutes, the world was left to ponder what those ominous six periods might portend. “At the Pentagon,” reports BuzzFeed, the tweet “raised fears that the president was getting ready to announce strikes on North Korea or some other military action.”
In the event, Trump was merely announcing an immoral and ill-considered ban on transgender troops, not gearing up for war. But it’s not too much to say that his tweeting has become a threat to world stability. For the sake of his presidency, and much else besides, he should stop.
Seemingly everyone who knows Trump — staffers, lawyers, friends, family — has urged him to do so. Members of Congress have practically begged him. Voters, too, have had their fill. About the only person who supports Trump’s use of Twitter, in fact, is Trump. And he’s doing plenty of damage to himself: contradicting his surrogates, starting rash fights, diminishing his authority and derailing his stated agenda. He may even be putting himself in legal jeopardy.
He is also undermining American politics. What’s official policy and what’s idle musing is known only to the president. At an already grim moment, his tweets are impeding legislation, worsening polarization and bewildering the general public. Day after day, the national conversation gets subsumed by the presidential Twitter feed and its endless grievances.
More worrisome still is the damage Trump is doing in world affairs. His tweets have recklessly upended American policy from Qatar to China to North Korea. They express disdain for the norms of diplomacy and the values of democracy. They have unnerved financial markets, antagonized allies, emboldened dictators, abetted foreign intelligence agencies — and all for what?
To “get the honest and unfiltered message out,” Trump says. And there is surely some benefit in the American people knowing what their president is thinking, even if in 140-character spurts. But that benefit needs to be balanced against the cost — to public discourse, to political culture, to global stability — of this president tweeting.
The founders of American democracy were rightly suspicious of populism and crass appeals to it. The qualities they valued in a president -- political restraint, personal modesty, deference to the legislature -- are still worth defending. Trump’s heedless tweeting, and the resulting chaos, show exactly what the founders were afraid of, and exactly how dangerous an unfiltered president can be.
Bloomberg View
Transgender attack is baldfaced attempt to distract from Russia
The Trump-Russia collusion saga must really be getting hot. America’s tweeter-in-chief is trying to change the subject – again.
Shortly before dawn’s early light Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced more national policy via Twitter. He declared the United States would no longer “accept or allow” transgender people in the U.S. military.
The Pentagon was as surprised as anyone by the tweeted declaration. The head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday no changes would be made until the directives came via official channels.
Transgender people already are serving their country. The armed services were in the process of reviving a decision by the Defense Department, under President Barack Obama, to allow transgender individuals to serve openly.
Trump did not explain or elaborate on his thinking, which is hardly new. He predictably invested no effort into arriving at another disturbing blurt of nonsense.
The president, who never served, dismisses but cannot factually impugn the roles of transgender members of the military. Trump’s latest scamper through La La Land had U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., among those wondering what this latest executive brain flare was all about.
Transgender people serve in the military in 18 other nations, from Canada to Israel to the Czech Republic.
Trump tried to suggest that the presence of transgender service members represented a burden on the Pentagon budget. Really? A 2016 Rand Corp. study estimated there were between 1,320 and 6,630 transgender people on active duty, out of 1.3 million service members.
Financial costs for hormonal treatments and surgeries might cost about $8.4 million or about the same as security for three of Trump’s frequent golf trips to Mar-a-Lago and other Trump-branded getaways.
Let’s go back to basics. President Trump is furious and deeply anxious about the ongoing Russia investigation. What do we know for sure? The U.S. intelligence community is in full agreement the Russians interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
What has the Trump administration done to prevent future interference? Nothing. What is the president doing in the meantime? Getting up very early to flush the byproduct of his fetid imagination.
Given a choice between protecting America’s democratic process or insulting U.S. citizens who have volunteered to protect their county, Trump’s inclination was painfully easy to predict.
The Seattle Times
This story was originally published July 29, 2017 at 1:52 PM with the headline "Trump's Twitter habit destabilizes the world."