Step It Up, President Trump

I use Twitter as a way to watch highlights of KU basketball and look at memes. But now, every time I scroll through Twitter, I see my President acting like a child.

Whether it’s a beef between him and Jay-Z or a bunch of political analysts having a roast session about his latest controversy, I loathe the daily Trump Twitter battle.

Before Trump was the most powerful leader in the world, his outlandish rhetoric only reflected poorly on him. Now as the president, it reflects poorly on all of America.

The ability to share thoughts with the world instantly is powerful and valuable – but Trump has no ability to refine his public thoughts.

It is not that I disagree with the President about everything; I’m sick of his antics. After one year in office, Trump has tweeted more than 2,500 times. That’s seven tweets per day.

When it comes down to it, Trump’s tweets are just plain unpresidential. Between his bad grammar, misinformation, and unnecessary aggression, he’s acting like an angry teen ranting, not a president.

Just the other day Trump tweeted out about government funding and he used the word “past” to say that a bill “passed.” I mean, come on man.

Trump, when you say things like your nuclear button is bigger than Kim Jong-Un’s and that a female senator “would do anything for” campaign donations, it now reflects on all Americans. Mr. President, you are telling everyone that it is okay to spread hate – and you’re supposed to be the leader of the greatest and most powerful nation on Earth.

And it’s not just his tweets. His public statements have caused more backlash and controversy than I’ve ever seen.

Trump’s biggest blunder came in early August, when a Robert E. Lee statue was set to be removed in Charlottesville, VA. In response to the two days of protests between white supremacists groups and counter-protesters, Trump said: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.”

How can the President be allowed to say this publicly to the nation? I should have been easy to discredit Nazis and Klan members but Trump did not. His statement condemned the racist protesters and counter-protesters equally, which is wrong coming from the President. In the moment, mistakes can be made, sure. We’ve all said stupid stuff. But Trump defended his comments with three more subsequent comments. That’s no mistake.

Trump should have got this right the first time and not screwed up. And by not owning up to his error and apologizing, he made America look bad because of his defense of racism.

In a European poll taken in December, Trump’s approval rating was at 23%. Trump has hurt America’s image with his obscene comments.

The list doesn’t end there. Trump’s most recent error was a quote that was released by The Washington Post. In which he said that immigrants from Africa and Haiti are coming from, “s***hole countries.” The quote was from a summer meeting with lawmakers about protections for immigrants.

The next day, Der Spiegel, a German newspaper, likened the president as devolving from man to monkey.

Now, that is not exactly how we want America to look.

There was even more worldwide backlash from this comment when the UN President said that the Trump cannot dismiss entire continents as “s***holes” and Haiti’s former President responded on Twitter with, “Shame on Trump.”

But America? It was different. Trump’s comments circulated the news for a few days before it was faded away and was forgotten. If we don’t keep him accountable, nothing is going to change.

We’re becoming immune to the problem, and that’s a major problem.

In Trump’s first year he used his power to offend, not lead. Trump is one of the most powerful people on earth, but he doesn’t act like it.

I would like to see Trump dial down his activeness on Twitter and really think. I mean really sit down and give his comments some good thought before tweeting.

He could learn a lesson or two from an age-old preschool lesson: if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

If he could just keep his fingers off the keyboard, I think that Trump may be able to survive his second year as president.

If only.