Who is Donald Trump without Twitter?

It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? They are nearly inseparable, and it is tough to imagine a better-matched pair in communications. You have the guy whose vocabulary is limited to about 500 words, his desire to speak limited by the need to notify people about his greatness, and a format that limits those statements to 280 characters each shot.

You aren’t going to see that kind of elegant perfection very often, not with humans involved. The 90-foot base paths for baseball is pretty close, too – come to think of it.

Regardless, the question is relevant now because Trump is about the leave the office that so often protected him at his worst. Being a public official shielded him from rules applicable to everyone else, famous or not, as Adam Rawnsley writes in the Daily Beast.

“Trump, associates are now telling reporters, is intent on running for president again in 2024 and could declare his candidacy as early as Joe Biden’s inauguration day. And Twitter’s public interest exception applies not just to office holders but to candidates, too. A candidate Trump is entitled to the same exception as a President Trump. But determining when Trump—or anyone else—becomes a candidate for president in the eyes of Twitter is tricky because the company hasn’t made clear what threshold it uses for considering an account holder a candidate,” the report states.

Let’s say that we got real dickish on Twitter even though we all know that would never happen, but play along. If they were moving to yank us, saying that we were running for president in late January of 2021, as is our right to say, would do us fck all good, right? Well, it might do Trump about as much good. True, he is taken more seriously having been president. But he is going to file to run for the nomination on January 20th, the day of the inauguration in order to keep the candidacy official and a place to keep the case before moving it over. That sorta quasi makes him a candidate and a bit of an official.

But Twitter isn’t stupid. They know the next election would be four years away and not every utterance by Trump is critical communication needed to keep democracy alive in the United States.

There is some precedent for the company booting a candidate once entitled to the public interest exception after their candidacy has ended. Twitter suspended DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero, a MAGA relationship expert who ran a failed bid to unseat Nancy Pelosi, for her racist tweets last month. And once you’re gone, you’re gone for good. There’s no chance that a new candidacy could resurrect his old account or allow him to register another one,” the report states. “Florida conspiracy theorist and far-right activist Laura Loomer managed to get herself banned from Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, PayPal and even Uber Eats after a string of racist utterances and bizarre behavior.

We would like to think that as a former president of the United States, Trump isn’t near as crazy as someone like Laura Loomer and wouldn’t get banned by all these sites. Then again, he was constrained before, not so much now. Plus, if you thought he was angry before, lookout.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and Twitter @JasonMiciak