This was sometimes true with TV (Reagan would certainly use TV to go over the heads of his critics), but the last time a medium allowed a president to do such a thing to this degree was when FDR used the “fireside chat.” With Twitter, Trump is able to go around the media filter. Could it be that Twitter is his secret weapon? And it could be just as valuable in terms of governing. Having said that, I’ve long thought that, were it not for Twitter and 24-hour cable news, Trump’s nomination and election would not have been possible. And reports that his staff had finally wrested his Twitter account away seemed to coincide with his success at the end of the general election. There were times during the campaign when Trump’s tweets seemed to step on stories, thereby changing the subject from a Hillary Clinton scandal to something outrageous. A lot of Trump’s scandals and gaffes (his own, as well as those of his administration - looking at you, Mike Flynn!) are the product of Twitter. This is not to say there are no inherent dangers in the president-elect’s use of Twitter. Trump seems to have grasped that social media - Twitter, specifically - lends itself to being a more intimate and unfiltered medium. To be sure, these shows were more irreverent than mainstream programs or outlets, but there was still a mediator between the president and the public. And “new media” outreach often meant appearing on podcasts and YouTube shows, which could be thought of as being similar to TV shows, except for the fact that they were broadcast on the internet (again, the horseless carriage analogy). Barack Obama’s image is younger and hipper, but his use of social media generally fit into an old paradigm. Which brings us to President-elect Donald Trump. Nixon) - and later, Ronald Reagan - deftly harnessed its ability to glamorize politics with images. In the case of radio, FDR was the first president to fully grasp its potential to humanize politics in the case of television, JFK (vs. This happens until someone with creativity and vision (and necessity!) discovers that each technology is inherently different. Yet, the fact that films with sound were originally referred to as “talkies” betrays the fact that we almost always see technological advancements through the prism of an old template. Whether Harding or Truman, the first president to use a given medium in office is never the one to master it, primarily because the temptation is always to see a new technology through the lens of an old paradigm.Īs the late author Neil Postman observed, it is incorrect to think of television as an extension of an old medium, just as it would be foolish to think of the automobile as a horseless carriage. Just as radio was an obvious benefit to a president who had a physical disability, TV was a blessing for a president who oozed charisma. Kennedy’s campaign in 1960 that a politician capitalized on the fact that TV was more than just radio with pictures. While FDR had appeared on TV, and Harry Truman was the first president to deliver a televised speech, it wasn’t until John F. Harding was the first president to be heard on the radio, but Franklin Roosevelt was the first to fully comprehend radio’s potential for communicating intimacy with the American public. Politicians are usually lagging indicators. If you think it’s odd that Trump, a 70-year-old who ran a decade after the medium was invented, is the one to have grasped the potential of social media, you’re not alone. In recent days, Trump has used the platform to attack the cast of “Hamilton” (a move some see as a devious diversion from other news, including legal settlements over Trump University) and to express some kind words about Sen. Kennedy, won by mastering a revolutionary new technology? Donald Trump has surprised us all so many times, but could it be that he will go down in history as a politician who, in the vein of Franklin D.
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