It might be wrong to reduce the great office of President of the United States by comparing it to a science fiction film, but when the incoming 45th President is little more than a petulant child himself, treading such ground is not without its merits. Because, I can't help comparing Donald Trump's inauguration tomorrow - speeding towards us like one of those pink stretch limousines used for hen nights in Essex (a lot of noise, crass behaviour and fake tans) - with Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith.
This third of the thoroughly underwhelming Star Wars prequels found the scheming Supreme Chancellor Palpatine (who is really the Sith Lord Darth Sidious) engineering the transformation of the Galactic Republic into the Galactic Empire, with him as Emperor, thus propelling the galaxy into decades of oppression, bolstered by the Dark Side of The Force. Got all that?
The point I'm clumsily trying to make is that since Trump's unexpected victory on November 8, his transition from President-elect to Commander-in-Chief has been unfolding with us looking on, helpless, as he has, mostly, outlined his thoughts in a random stream-of-semi-consciousness via the medium of Twitter. He'd barely won the election before tweeting, in the early hours of November 11, "Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!".
Perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised: ever since he started using Twitter in 2009, Trump - then just a billionaire businessman with a history of exotic wives and a side career as America's version of Alan Sugar on The Apprentice - had used the platform for his wonky, archly dumbed-down observations, such as claiming President Obama's birth certificate was "a fraud", along with more inciteful suggestions that have mirrored the inflammatory nature of his presidential campaign.
Since the election on November 8, Trump has, in 140 characters, declared Nigel Farage his preference for UK ambassador to Washington (breaking any number of diplomatic protocols in the process); waged personal war on Meryl Streep, branding her "overrated" and a "Hillary Flunky", just for her thinly-veiled comments about him at the Golden Globes (and this after he once included her in a glowing tweet about Hollywood's greatest talents); derided the cast of the hit Broadway show Hamilton for making a speech to Vice President-Elect Mike Pence, and had a go at Alec Baldwin for his note-perfect Trump impersonation on Saturday Night Live; and he's taken on everything and everyone from CNN and the "unfair" media to the US's own intelligence agencies.
Despite more sensible views to the contrary, Trump refuses to drop his Twitter account, declaring in typically bombastic style that it "has become so powerful that I can actually make my enemies tell the truth.". Methinks some self-inflated opinion of his own authority here. Earlier this week, in Michael Gove's less than objective interview for The Times, the incoming president gave the following, typically rambling statement on keeping his @realDonaldTrump Twitter handle, as opposed to taking over the official Presidential account:
"So I've got 46 million people right now - that's a lot, that's really a lot - but 46 million - including Facebook, Twitter and, ya know, Instagram, so when you think that you're 46 million there, I'd rather just let that build up and just keep it @realDonaldTrump. It's working - and the tweeting, I thought I'd do less of it, but I'm covered so dishonestly by the press - so dishonestly - that I can put out Twitter - and it's not 140, it's now 280 - I can go bing bing bing...and they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out - this morning on television, Fox - 'Donald Trump, we have breaking news'." Twitter, itself, must be beside itself at the publicity.
It's amazing that with such a lack of self-editing Trump is able to tweet at all. But there, in that last line, is the crux of the matter: Trump tweets, Fox News runs it as breaking news. The White House press team will be feeling particularly redundant at this moment. Not to mention the strategy teams and all the other political advisors that would normally populate the White House staff.
Trump's supporters and a few commentators will cutely say that this break in protocol is all part of Trump's populist appeal, that he won't stand on ceremony and will tweet exactly what he wants, when he wants to tweet it, and without any consideration for who might be uncomfortable about it. Some will say that without the confines of tweets being filtered through officials and advisers, as any other form of official communication, Trump is doing what he said all along would be central to his philosophy, that "making America great again" means connecting with America, not hiding behind the Washington Beltway.The trouble is, his tweeting is beyond folksy engagement with the supposed disenfranchised of Middle America. Most of it is thin-skinned reaction. Are petulant responses to actors' joshing really what we should be seeing from the US Commander-in-Chief when there are more pressing matters to attend to, like Syria, Russia, China and the global economy?
It brings me back to another comparison I've made - just after the election result itself - when I noted that America had elected Homer Simpson as its president, a boorish, bar hog with oddly coloured skin who'll drunkenly say anything outrageous to make him look popular. That may have been a persona to get him elected, but so far it doesn't seem to have come to an end. And nor can we expect it to for the next four years at least.
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