Trump is back.
No, he wasn’t sworn in as president on March 4 (as was the chatter on the far-right web), and no, he hasn’t launched a 2024 presidential campaign (though polls tab him as the GOP frontrunner). But two months after departing the White House, former President Donald Trump reportedly decided to make a foray back into the social media scene — via his own platform.
A Trump spokesperson told Fox News on Sunday that the former president will be “returning to social media in two or three months” by way of his own site — rumored to “completely redefine the game” and bring in “tens of millions” of users.
Redefine, he shall. Trump rewrote the rulebook on politicians’ use of social media the first go-around. But his legacy on social media far outlives his presence — and a growing number of politicians are following his lead, using it as a way to garner publicity, fan partisan fires and fire up their bases.
It’s not healthy. The vast majority of politicians would do well to leave social media for good.
Contrary to online belief, Twitter does little to help most politicians connect with constituents or effectively govern. How do 280-character messages effectively discuss 240-page bills? What good do petty subtweets do in crafting bipartisan solutions? How does flaunting “wittiness” (or brashness) online reaffirm any faith in one’s prowess on the Hill?
My colleague Brian Ericson, in analyzing one congressional Twitter fight last month, wrote that “Twitter … is a platform unbefitting of an elected member of Congress, who we as a people should expect to have serious, nuanced discussions and debates with other members about complex policy.” And those who bemoan “constituent engagement” as a serious loss for congresspeople leaving Twitter need look no further than those congresspeople’s mentions. (Name-calling and accusation are much, much more common than any meaningful interaction.)
While some politicians — like Utah Gov. Spencer Cox — have largely sidestepped Twitter fights and effectively harness it to show their personal side, even Cox sees the harm in engaging in clickbait cliches. “There hasn’t been very much interesting policy work going on, on the right,” Cox, a Republican, said in an interview last week. “It seems we’ve just defined ourselves in opposition to whatever it is the left is doing.”
Josh Huder, a senior fellow at Georgetown’s Government Affairs Institute, agrees. “Much of Congress nowadays is about messaging, not as much about creating law or passing things as it used to be,” he told the Deseret News’ D. Hunter Schwarz. Schwarz also notes that some members of Congress, like freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C, have admitted to building their “staff around comms rather than legislation.” (Yes, that’s the same Cawthorn who recently went viral on Twitter for punching a tree for 19 seconds straight.)
For the few that can maneuver social media with the grace of Cox or Andrew Yang or Justin Amash, keep it up — and stay out of needless battles (with political opponents or trees). For everyone else, just leave it up to the communications team.
And those who really want to know what their constituents are saying can use a secret account. Most probably have them already, anyway. In a conversation shortly after Trump left Twitter in January, Ashley Feinberg — the journalist who uncovered Mitt Romney’s fake “Pierre Delecto” Twitter profile in 2019 — told me that politicians with “burner accounts” are hardly the minority.
“I think it’s more prominent than people realize,” Feinberg said. “(Most politicians) don’t run their actual accounts, but they obviously still want very much to be aware of what people are saying online.”
It’s not healthy. The vast majority of politicians would do well to leave social media for good.
For some, like Trump, that will never be the solution. Trump relished the adulation his social media profiles brought and the freedom to speak whatever was on his mind. “He likes causing chaos, and you can’t do that as an anonymous account,” Feinberg said.
If that’s what most, or even some, politicians are seeking to do on social media, they — and we — may be best suited if they leave. If they want a cheap and effective way to get news out, leave it up to the communications team (like most of the older, and quieter, politicians already do). And if they really want to engage with constituents, sifting through Twitter trolls in hopes of finding a few golden conversations seems like a poor use of taxpayer-funded time.
But with Trump returning to the social media realm, a dialed-down environment is unlikely. If anything, it will morph into an echo chamber, as the like-minded congregate among themselves on their own, separate platforms. The politicians who already pick partisan fights will then have little resistance to unleash whatever they please. So much for healthy political dialogue.