Upon taking power in Russia a hundred years ago, the head of the Bolsheviks, Vladimir Lenin, in his article Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power? noted that “We (the Bolsheviks) are not utopians. We know that an unskilled labourer or a cook cannot immediately get on with the job of state administration.“
Which brings the rationale of the ruling Western elites into question, since one cannot help but wonder are they clueless enough to assume that a social media addict can successfully rule a state, especially a state so big and powerful as the United States.
It’s pretty much given that Trump has a soft spot for Twitter, yet he spends more time tweeting that consulting his advisors. In fact, Trump has made his social activities his main occupation in a bid to persuade each and every single one of his followers that he’s not just capable of ruling the country, but the whole world as well.
This approach, no matter how unorthodox it is, cannot be approved, as it’s been noted by the New York Times. This media has gone as far as to make a list of people, media sources, and politicians the sitting US President chose to insult on the social media since his inauguration. The better amount of Trump’s hatred was aimed at the American media, which Trump described as dishonest, deceitful, corrupt, unfair, and spiteful. He awarded the CBS network with the title of an “enemy of the American people,” CNN, Trump believes, is engaged in “junk journalism,” and Facebook, according to the sitting US President, is “always anti-Tramp”.
Clearly Trump didn’t feel shy enough to keep his impression of Hillary Clinton to himself, as he went to assess her features publicly, repeatedly referring to her as “Crooked Hillary“, while adding that she is shameful and a bigot.
It’s curious that US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson that is always going behind himself in a bid to somehow impress Trump has recently gone as far as to support Trump’s obsession with Twitter by admitting in an interview for the NBC that he’s been using print outs of Trump’s tweets to adjust America’s foreign policy.
The media has already reported that the head of the American state spends four to eight hours a day on on social media and watching TV. This resulted in the White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly making an attempt of persuading Trump into being more preoccupied with both national and international affairs, at the very least, in the morning hours.
Trump’s first 12 months in office haven’t had any positive effort on Trump’s addiction. According to Michael Wolff, that spent almost a year near Trump, outbursts of anger, tears and irrational rage dominate the reality show scene unfolding in the White House.
As it’s been noted by the Guardian:
It is not only that his politics and policies, from tax cuts and climate change to Palestine and nuclear weapons, are disastrously wrong-headed. It is not just that his idea of leadership is divisive, confrontational and irresponsible. Nor does the problem lie solely with his blatant racism, misogyny and chauvinism, though these are indeed massive problems.
The media source would also point out that the fundamental failing underlying Trump’s presidency is his willful ignorance, since his childish behavior combined with a staggering lack of knowledge has transformed the sitting US president into a liability to his own country. Truth be told, when one is coming across the notion that Trump is lacking in empathy, shamelessly mendacious, cynical and unversed or uninterested in the enduring human and constitutional values his office is sworn to uphold, it’s hard to disagree.
It’s pretty indicative then that the well-respected German Spiegel has been devoting a lot of attention to Trump recently, expressing the attitude of the leading European states towards Trump in a rather cartoonish fashion. Last August, Spiegel would put a picture of Trump being a Ku Klux Klan member on the front cover. In June, Spiegel placed on its cover the image of Trump whacking the Earth with his golf club, thus setting it on fire. As for last January, that month Spiegel’s readers had an opportunity to admire US President as the final stage in the famous Road to Homo Sapiens illustration, which alluded that evolution has played a cruel joke on men.
According to the survey conducted by NBC News/GenForward, a total of 63% Americans aged between 18 and 34 disapprove of Trump’s policies as they believe that he has been driving the US in a wrong direction. Against this backdrop, one cannot help but feel surprised when he is to find out that Trump is to be nominated for Nobel Peace Prize, which was reported by the Norwegian Nettavisen. According to the director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Henrik Urdal, the initiative to nominate Trump “belongs to an American”, however he failed to clarify who exactly was bold enough to come up with such an idea, describing this information as confidential. However, he confirmed that Trump nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for the third time. According to Urdal, the US president is worthy of this award for adherence to the ideology of “the struggle for peace through the use of force” and other alleged merits.
It seems that the world hasn’t completely forgotten yet another one prominent contender for the Nobel Peace Prize, that managed to succeed in his quest – President Barack Obama is well known to everyone, as it hasn’t fully appreciated his commitment to warmongering and terrorism sponsoring. Let’s wait and see how the Nobel Committee is going to try and justify its idea of Trump being a relentless peace fighter…
As for us, we are to follow closely all of Trump’s steps in a bid to find an answer to the question: Can a social media addict run a state?
Grete Mautner is an independent researcher and journalist from Germany, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”