Trump’s tweet storm ends on a new low

Before the assault Trump had exhorted them to do just that, and he was going to march with them to storm the building. But he didn’t, he went home.

And then people died. ‘‘Go home. You’re special. We love you.’’

While the rioting was occurring, Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani were telephoning senators to get them to somehow, anyhow, stall the count. Democracy under siege? Forget it.

And now Twitter has banned Trump from using its service. Forever.

Covfefe to all that, as author Robert Graves might have said.

Goodbye to All That was the title of Graves’ WWI memoir. The past four years have been a war zone in many ways, none more so than in the wide open space of the Twitterverse. And no one has tried to occupy that space more than Donald Trump and his warp-speed fingers and warped view of what is right and wrong. Let this be his legacy that though he praised those who did his bidding, he failed.

Now that it is set in stone that Joe Biden will be the next President of the US, let us bid farewell to Trump, his fevered hands, and a mark of his time in office. His tweets. Now all those who were assailed in them can be set free.

By some reckoning, Trump has tweeted tens of thousands of times during his tenure (up there with his lies). His peak was one day last June when he hit the tweet button 200 times. Given he had to get some sleep, surely, say eight hours, then he sent out about 12 tweets every hour. Staff fired, countries threatened, people ridiculed, insurrection urged, self-grandiosity affirmed, all through the tweet.

There are so many from which to choose but this one exposes his attitude of ‘me against the world’: “So disgusting to watch Twitter’s so-called ‘Trending’, where sooo many trends are about me, and never a good one. They look for anything they can find, make it as bad as possible, and blow it up, trying to make it trend. Really ridiculous, illegal, and, of course, very unfair!”

His targets varied: “Lowest rated Oscars in HISTORY. Problem is, we don’t have Stars anymore – except your President (just kidding, of course)!”

“Sadly, the overwhelming amount of violent crime in our major cities is committed by blacks and hispanics – a tough subject – must be discussed.”

Perhaps it shows the character of the man, the depth of his intellect and the mechanics of his thinking that his favoured method of communication is limited to 280 characters.

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And now there are no more tweets. Good. Who benefits from the thoughts of such a man? Let him howl at the moon in his misplaced grievance for all the world’s ignorance at how great a man he is. And will the world then care?

Nature abhors a vacuum, but nature may just find in the space where he once strutted and pronounced idiocies, malice and lies, that it can accommodate where once he stood in power.

His capital crimes were many: “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!”

That’s the irony. Of all the times he tweeted FAKE NEWS!, the fake news in the end came from him.

May his conscience rise, finally, and may he be haunted by these words: Go home. You’re special. We love you.

How tweet that would be.

Warwick McFadyen is a desk editor at The Age.