Letter to the editor: Twitter presidency

To the editor:

It appears that our president-elect sent out some fairly incendiary tweets in the early hours of the morning taking China to task for devaluing the yuan and building things in the South China Sea without asking us. Putting aside for the moment whether China has to ask our permission to do anything, let’s get to the meat of this: Twitter? Really?

Why is Twitter a legitimate outlet for the president to make political statements of world-shattering potential? Twitter is, by definition, an off-the-cuff kind of communication. Off-the-cuff is one thing on the Ellen DeGeneres show; off-the-cuff remarks at 3 a.m. about other world powers with military strength, quite another. If he can do this, what’s to stop him from tweeting a declaration of war at 3 in the morning? Nothing.

Even more disturbing? These tweets indicate that he is ignoring whatever guidance he is being given by the very advisers that he has appointed.

With Donald Trump as president we run the very real risk of transforming from the most powerful nation on earth to the radioactive smoking remains of the most powerful nation on earth: It’s called mutually assured destruction.

The election isn’t official until Dec. 19. The Electoral College has the power to prevent a candidate with “talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity” from becoming president. And though there will be vitriol and violence aplenty here at home if the results were to change, at least we would all still have a home.

You want to make America great (again)? Make sure there is an America.