He is not the first to mangle spelling and syntax on social media. But President Donald Trump is surely the most powerful. So when he tweets, deletes, then tweets again and deletes again, the pedants among us are understandably quick to log on and sound off.
Twitter
is an unforgiving medium, especially for its superusers. The anguished
swells of emotion that follow a Trump typo are symptomatic not only of
our tribal politics, but the online immune system's typically intense
reaction to any wobbles or flubs in its midst.
By
his nature, Trump demands the incessant niggling corrections and
mocking. He gives as good, often better -- or nastier -- than he gets.
Ultimately, there are at least two valid points of view to consider.
1) The President is a role model and should be able to tap out 140 characters without debasing our political language.
2) Who cares?
Good
news: There is room for both. To the latter point, Trump's spelling
foibles are almost always less interesting, or instructive, than our
response to them. Back in 1992, former Vice President Dan Quayle, taking
his cue from an incorrectly prepared index card, added an "e" to the
end of a young student's correct spelling of "potato." Quayle quickly
became -- and, if you're old enough, remains -- a national punchline
"It
was more than a gaffe,'' he wrote, still shaken, in a memoir a couple
years later. ''It was a 'defining moment' of the worst imaginable kind. I
can't overstate how discouraging and exasperating the whole event
was.''
Quayle's biggest mistake,
though, was authoring his infamous flub in an era before the narrative
was set and interpreted on the internet. His lampooning -- the memes,
GIFs, etc. -- would have come in waves, but waves break and modern news
cycles (even pre-Trump) rarely dwell so long or harshly on any
particular "defining moment." Today, Quayle would probably be
fundraising off the error, offering supporters a chance to stick it to
the Democrats by purchasing a $15 bag of "Potatoe" chips.
The
ironic thing about Trump's mishaps are his clear desire to erase them.
Often literally. For someone who, as a matter of principle, is loath to
admit even the smallest mistake, the President repeatedly deletes messy
tweets and replaces them with copy-edited versions.
His Thursday morning anti-media rant followed the usual script. The first run confused "there" for "their" and "too" for "to."
"The
Fake News is now complaining about my different types of back to back
speeches. Well, their was Afghanistan (somber), the big
Rally....(enthusiastic, dynamic and fun) and the American Legion - V.A.
(respectful and strong)," he wrote. "To bad the Dems have no one who can
change tones!"
The first tweet was deleted
once and fixed. It took three tries to get the second half down. If this
sounds familiar, Trump kicked off a similar commotion this past
weekend, when he repeatedly misspelled "heal" -- as in reconcile or
repair -- as "heel," like the back of your foot or, in wrestling slang, a
villain. The subject matter then was a mass anti-racism demonstration
in Boston.
The first tweet read,
before being erased: "Our great country has been divided for decade,but
it will come together again. Sometimes protest is needed in order to
heel,and heel we will!"
The next,
soon to be scrubbed too: "Our great country has been divided for
decades. Sometimes you need protest in order to heel, & we will
heel, & be stronger than ever before!"
Finally,
more than a half-hour after it began, Trump delivered the message that
still now appears in his feed: "Our great country has been divided for
decades. Sometimes you need protest in order to heal, & we will
heal, & be stronger than ever before!"
The lapses haven't been
limited to Trump's personal account. More official-looking documents
have been marred by similar errors. Who can forget when the White House
announced its plans to nominate former "Governor John Huntsman Jr. of
Utah" to be the new ambassador to Russia? Probably not the staffer who
typed up the release -- Huntsman's first name is spelled, "Jon." No "h."
And in what could well be
among the most consequential tweets of his short presidency, Trump
bumbled in accusing his predecessor, Barack Obama, of spying on his
phone calls during the 2016 election.
"How
low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred
election process," he tweeted, the second "p" in tap lingering uncannily
like the "e" in Quayle's "potatoe."
Which brings us back to the
first question. Is it wrong -- Elitist! Daft! Hypocritical! -- to harp
on the President's grammatical gaffes? Many activists opposed to the
Trump agenda dismiss the shaming as a waste of time and, in some cases,
counterproductive. Anti-intellectualism is part of Trump's political
brand, and a prolonged mass scolding on Twitter has a way of inflaming
it.
On the flip side, Trump's
apparent unwillingness to spell-check himself before dashing off an
opinion or sharing some bit of information speaks to his personality and
highlights his administration's ramshackle communications process.
Consider, at last, "covfefe."
It
was a little after midnight on May 31 when Trump posted what read like
the beginning of a typical complaint about the media. "Despite the
constant negative press covfefe," he tweeted. Insomniac Twitter feasted.
Six
hours later, the mystery word's meme-ification complete, Trump returned
to ask, in what read like a rare attempt at self-deprecation, "Who can
figure out the true meaning of 'covfefe' ??? Enjoy!"
But, of course, we could
not. There is no pleasure here. Not for long. That same afternoon, Sean
Spicer, the now former White House press secretary, seemed to deny during a press briefing that there had been any typo at all.
"The President and a small group of people know exactly what he meant," Spicer said.
And yet, understanding never felt so far off.
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