An unpresidential move
As has been widely reported, the President Elect of the United States made a spelling mistake in a tweet that he posted this morning. The fact that he made a spelling error is not in my opinion big news. I am probably going to make several errors as I type out this post, and I am doing it on a real keyboard as opposed to on a mobile device (the general assumption based on internet sleuthing is that Mr. Trump posts from an Android device). My major concern however is that the spelling mistake actually made it out to the world. All twitter clients that I have used will actively show you as you type that you have made a spelling mistake, and will give you the option of fixing them. This leads me to two possible conclusions:
a) Mr. Trump actually thought that his device was wrong in correcting him and ignored it. This actually follows a pattern of Trump happily ignoring advisors and charging forward. It’s easy to find examples: Trump ignoring all of his security advisors about Russian hacking, climate change, claiming that vaccines cause autism, etc. In fact, here’s a short list of 19 odd items that Trump claims to know better than anyone else. It makes it very easy to believe that Trump saw the helpful red underline under “unpresidented” and thought that he knew better than the computer. I honestly was fully expecting his next tweet to be:
b) That Mr. Trump was typing very quickly and posted before he read what he typed. This happens occasionally when texting to friends, often with hilarious results due to autocorrect, but should not be allowed to happen if you are the President (-Elect). If this is true, this is criminally irresponsible for a man with so much responsibility and influence. The leads me to believe that either the man has absolutely no clue of the impact that his tweets have, or he just doesn’t care. Either way terrifies me.
Maybe Trump has some incredible long term strategy of “playing dumb” to negotiate. This would be compatible with several of the strategies presented in “The Art of the Deal”. Perhaps these strategies are effective when negotiating for a raise or a used car deal, but thinking that an idiot is in control of the nuclear codes makes it hard for me to sleep at night, and I can’t believe it inspires confidence in America from other heads of state.
Mr. Trump, as our commander in chief you represent the United States to the world. You have spent a long time arguing that you want to represent all Americans, instead of just the “uneducated voters” who apparently got you into office. Let’s start with something simple, like being able to speak and spell in your native language. If you are going to set this bar for anybody who wants to enter this country, you should be required to pass it yourself.
(I hope if I made any spelling mistakes in this article, that my readers will let me know about it ASAP)