Subscribe Place Ad Buy Trib Photos Readers' Choice Contests
Jobs Homes Autos Classifieds
Trib Total Media Contact Us
Editorial: Trump can’t block out criticism | TribLIVE.com
Editorials

Editorial: Trump can’t block out criticism

Tribune-Review
1414517_web1_1345572-d418991cd02541ac9eb1dfa7881ece4a

President Trump can’t block his opponents from his Twitter account.

That’s not because of last week’s federal appeals court ruling that upheld a lower court’s decision calling the presidential blocks unconstitutional.

Trump has just shy of 62 million followers on the social media platform. He has used it to reach past spokespeople and reporters and anchors and speak directly to people via tweets that have included official announcements and teases for upcoming action.

According to the court ruling, you can’t use social media for official purposes and simultaneously cut off those who don’t agree with you. The court has a good point.

But the court is also just wrong. Not about the law, but about the mechanics.

No one can be blocked from reading Trump’s tweets because they are unavoidable. To be blocked, you need a Twitter account. To find out what the president tweeted at 9 a.m. on a Saturday, you only need exposure to a TV. It will be covered relentlessly. It will be read to you, analyzed for you and debated for you.

Which brings us to responding to those tweets, because that’s the part the ruling really addresses — the First Amendment rights of the people to respond.

For multimillionaire “influencers” or trendy celebrities, blocking isn’t a First Amendment issue because individual citizens have no obligation to listen to what detractors say. The right to tell the guy in charge why you think he’s wrong is what we celebrate every Fourth of July, though, so the president or another elected official doesn’t have that same prerogative.

But observation tells us it is as impossible for Trump to block out his detractors as it is for the common folk to do the reverse. And for the same reason.

The president, whose own communications staff has said he has a pugnacious tendency to punch back at any perceived slight, is a voracious consumer of televised news.

He may have been able to block out Jane Doe or John Q. Public in the past, but those were individual voices in a crowd. Trump was and is absolutely aware that he has critics and what they are saying.

He has not blocked out the recent criticism of former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, or the linked-arm sisterhood of Democratic congresswomen known as “The Squad.”

Even if we never heard from the president’s critics, we would know who they are because of his responses to them.

He can’t block them. And he can’t block himself.

Categories: Opinion | Editorials
TribLIVE commenting policy

You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our Terms of Service.

We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers

We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.

We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.

We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.

We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.