President Barack Obama is campaigning to the final whistle for Hillary Clinton, who he has called the “most qualified” person ever to run for president. Obama, a famously eloquent speaker, has rolled up his sleeves and increasingly let more punch and swagger into his mockery of Clinton’s GOP opponent Donald Trump. Talking in Florida, a key election state, Obama savaged Trump for allegedly losing his Twitter privileges, saying:
“They had so little confidence in his self-control they said we’re just going to take away your Twitter. If somebody can’t handle a Twitter account, they can’t handle the nuclear codes.”
Trump’s campaign may or may not have reigned in their leader on social media. But the move would be understandable, with the campaign not wanting the impulsive candidate to incur a self-inflicted wound in the campaign’s final days. But Obama’s comparison of Twitter and nuclear codes also has relevance beyond the cautionary: Trump has used Twitter to carpet bomb his opponents for 18 months, going all the way back to the primaries. And as he stands today at the precipice of the presidency, it’s hard to say Twitter isn’t a weapon — at least the way he uses it. And it’s equally hard to say that Trump, despite some reports, hasn’t mastered the medium’s strengths to engage and enlarge his base.
