The provocative handling was given birth to him by a New York real estate mogul who used him to help him become the 45th president of the United States. It started with a May 4, 2009 tweet promotion Donald Trumpnext appearance on David Letterman’s show.
He died more than 57,000 tweets later, and Trump used some of his final posts on the powerful platform to do so with a pro-Trump crowd harassing Congress halls while lawmakers had to certify his defeat.
The account met its demise when Twitter announced Friday that it was permanently plugging @realDonaldTrump, and worried that Trump would use it to “incite more violence.” Trump retorted that “we would build our own platform in the near future. We will not be silenced!”
Trump, a rookie politician but an experienced salesman, realized the power of social media the way few other politicians did. And he exercised it with an unprecedented power to reduce his opponents, shape elections and shape reality, at least in the eyes of his supporters.
At first, @realDonaldTrump seemed innocent enough. Its owner, who had prolific experience in marketing casinos, real estate and even Oreos, used the platform primarily to promote his books, media appearances and give friendly plugs to friends.
But when Trump started playing seriously with one White house running, became a tool to burn opponents and shape their nationalist philosophy, “America First.”
He deployed his poison equally, whether insulting celebrity enemies (Rosie O’Donnell was “raw, rude, nasty and dumb”) or entire countries (Britain “tries to disguise its massive Muslim problem”).
Peter Costanzo, then director of online marketing for the publishing house that published Trump’s book, “Think Like a Champion,” helped bring Trump to the platform.
Twitter was still in its infancy at the time. But Costanzo, who later worked at The Associated Press, saw the 140-character-per-message platform as a new tool the real estate mogul could use to boost sales and reach a wider audience.
In a 2016 interview, he reminded Costanzo of seven minutes to throw himself at Trump _ “Not five minutes, not ten.”
Trump liked what he heard.
“I said,‘ Let’s tell you @realDonaldTrump: you’re the real Donald Trump, ’” Costanzo recalled. “He thought about it for a minute and said,‘ I like it. Let’s do it “.
Aside from Trump’s family, no one seemed outside the bounds of his Twitter anger. Trump attacked Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats, 2016 political rivals, current administration officials, former administration officials, the Republican Party, and cable networks.
@realDonaldTrump was prolific: the days when its owner was especially agitated, as in the process of dismissal, he expelled more than 100 tweets.
In his most popular tweet, on October 2, 2020, (at) realDonaldTrump announced that Trump and First Lady Melania Trump had contracted the coronavirus. According to Factba.se, the post garnered 1.8 million likes and nearly 400,000 retweets, which tracks the president’s habits and comments on social media.
The account was used to announce layoffs. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson learned of his dismissal in a tweet.
The account threatened opponents in the most showy terms. Before Trump “fell in love” with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un through a secret exchange of letters, Trump used Twitter to baptize him as a “rocket man” and vowed to respond with “fire and fury” if the authoritarian he dared to attack the United States.
(at) realDonaldTrump often spread misleading, false and malicious claims, such as baseless ideas that liberal philanthropist George Soros paid protesters at Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings and that the November election was marred by fraud electoral.
Trump often tweeted well past midnight and before dawn, a cathartic outburst of grievances (Witch Hunt! Crooked Hillary, Russia, Russia, Russia, FAKE NEWS, etc.). the publications effectively allowed Trump to work around Washington media outlets and amplify the Allied message.
Sometimes (a) realDonaldTrump stumbled. Trump deleted 1,166 tweets and, in his last months on the platform, had 471 tweets tagged by Twitter for misinformation, according to Factba.se.
In one of his most memorable stumbles on Twitter, Trump in May 2017 sent (and then deleted) a cryptic midnight tweet that said “Despite the constant negative press covfefe.”
Nonsense set Twitterverse on fire with speculation. Theories included that the chief tweeter had fallen asleep halfway through the message and that the man who once boasted of having “the best words” added a new word to the lexicon to adequately describe the collusion between Democrats and the press.
The mystery was never solved.
Sam Nunberg, a longtime and now ex-Trump adviser, said that in the summer of 2011, after Trump announced he would not run in 2012 but wanted to remain relevant, his team decided to start using the networks. to increase their profile.
They chose to focus on Twitter, where they already had an account and several hundred thousand followers. Nunberg recalls sending Trump daily reports of his fan growth. Sometimes Trump would return it with handwritten notes: “Why not more?” “Why so slow?”
They celebrated when they reached the million.
“Twitter definitely played a key role in building Donald Trump as a political figure within Republican politics and he also really liked it,” Nunberg said. “Remember he said,‘ I wanted to have a diary. That’s great, it’s like a lossless newspaper. ”
Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., took to Twitter shortly after the platform banned (a) realDonaldTrump from noting that he continues to allow Iran’s supreme leader “and numerous other dictatorial regimes” to use the platform, but he cannot fulfill his father.
“Mao would be proud,” he mocked Trump Jr.
In the end, @realDonaldTrump offered an instant look at Trump’s mood for more than a decade, a period in which TV star “Learning” became the 45th American president.
Along the way, when historians look for a glimpse into Trump’s thoughts on the issues of his time, from actress Kristen Stewart’s treatment of co-star Robert Pattinson to the president’s views on Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, the first stop may inevitably be. be one of the many digital archives that have retained the tweets of @realDonaldTrump.
With Trump, whatever the topic, there’s always a tweet for it.