A parody library, by The Daily Show, showcases President Trump's tweets
through the years. Guests can create their own tweets on a magnetic
wall. PHOTO | AFP
In 2005, because Jay Kay got himself a Twitter account during
his incumbency that would regularly update the Twitterati, among other
things, I got all excited about having a media-age president.
This
move signalled an evolution from the dark ages of a media-averse
administration under former newspaper editor Benjamin Mkapa (please,
enjoy the contradiction there) into the sun and fun of being constantly
messaged by a slick and savvy marketing team.
State
control seemed to loosen a little bit around what could be said; the
tone in which we could talk of matters public didn’t have to be
reverential anymore.
Not everyone liked it, surely,
but it worked for the voting public. If we must endure these cynical
creatures of our own making that we call elected politicians, whose
statements should never be believed, it is only normal to gravitate
towards the ones that provide good, non-homicidal fun along the way.
Presidenting
on Twitter is one of those things which we all know is carefully
stage-managed. Sure, some of the character of the incumbent at hand may
be allowed to leak through but really what we’re after is a caricature,
an exaggeration of the features that most identify a person or endear
them to us as consumers.
And it all seemed fine, a
lovely world in which the distance between ruled and rulers could be
further diminished with the help of friendly technologies. What could go
wrong?
Twelve years down the line and we have Donald
Trump. I have never seen anyone caricature themselves. The US has
delivered unto us a POTUS whose media interactions are so bizarre that
studying them is a full-time job.
As global citizens
who have a stake in this planet where a man of unsteady temper could
launch nuclear bombs within 20 minutes without any checks and balances,
we are being compensated with the bitter joy of watching his Twitter
account.
For all that it is entertaining, this bargain does not seem fair.
Because of his dangerous candour online, many people have suggested that President Trump be banned from using Twitter.
The
opposing side makes two compelling arguments: It is unprecedented to
have a direct window into a president’s unfiltered thoughts and moods,
and now the public doesn’t have to scramble to figure out what is going
on. We don’t even have to rely on the media so heavily when tweets have
taken on the status of presidential pronouncements.
And
with this experience has come a terrible realisation: this media-age
president thing is not at all what I had hoped it would be. I used to
think that folks who like their leaders to be more circumspect were
being conservative in a backwards sort of way but I understand now.
There
can be such a thing as observing the powerful too closely, being too
privy to their foibles. The saying that familiarity breeds contempt
comes to mind: Not everyone can be decorous all the time; in fact, many
individual leaders probably find it hard to be decorous at all.
So
I come back to the home environment for solace. Not many African
-residents are online, on account of their generally advanced ages and
poor tech-savvy. But I am now ready to embrace the benefits that this
conveys: Those that do have accounts tend to be heavily managed, so much
so frankly that their tweets are safely uninteresting and unlikely to
cause any drama.
Is there a contradiction in wishing
for leadership that is approachable, media-friendly and relaxed while
wanting to keep that aura of mystery and reserve that is such a critical
component of respect and/or awe? Probably not.
What I
am really asking for, it turns out, is good marketing. I want to be
lied to, just a little bit, to put some gloss on the whole endeavour.
Donald Trump may not have taught me much about how to do business, but
he’s an incomparable cautionary tale about what presidents shouldn’t be
allowed to do online.
So I sit here grateful, for the
first time ever, that my own incumbent’s Twitter account is exceedingly
stuffy and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
If
anything, this could become a criterion for the selection of future
candidates: any whiff of Trumpishness means immediate disqualification.
Media-age president? No thanks, after all.
Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report. E-mail: elsieeyakuze@gmail.com
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