For a President who speaks so strongly against voter fraud, it should come as a shock to hear him indirectly promote it.
In a few of his most recent tweets, President Trump encouraged voters to not only send in their absentee ballot, but to attempt voting in person at the polls on Election Day as well.
In a twitter thread President Trump said,
“….go to your Polling Place to see whether or not your Mail In Vote has been Tabulated (Counted). If it has you will not be able to Vote & the Mail In System worked properly. If it has not been Counted, VOTE (which is a citizen’s right to do)”
He further claimed, “….after you Vote, which it should not, that Ballot will not be used or counted in that your vote has already been cast & tabulated. YOU ARE NOW ASSURED THAT YOUR PRECIOUS VOTE HAS BEEN COUNTED, it hasn’t been “lost, thrown out, or in any way destroyed” GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!”
The president suggesting that someone (on the other side of the political spectrum), which he refers to as “them,” is trying to take away Americans’ right to vote is clearly a scare-tactic. However, most of his base do not see it that way. Many individuals are so loyal to him that it is not unlikely for them to actually follow this direction, which makes the Tweet that much scarier.
Twitter immediately flagged and addressed the tweet. They said that it “violated the Twitter Rules about civic and election integrity.”
During the Winthrop University’s Alumni Association presentation ‘Elections in the Time of Coronavirus,’ adjunct faculty member in Political Science, Dr. John Holder offered his expertise on the situation.
“If you vote twice, it is by definition a violation of the law. I don’t know that it’s illegal to encourage people to do that but it is absolutely illegal to do it,” going on to say, “President Trump might want to reconsider that advice considering that some of the people who are going to try to do that may end up having legal charges filed against them,” Dr. Holder said.
Never before has a president publicly spoken in such a way that went against any platform’s civic and election integrity standards, much less been involved in anything quite like this. This type of rhetoric flowing directly from the top of leadership in this country is dangerous because it has the potential to lead some people to committing crimes, such as voter fraud, which President Trump ironically so often claims to be a major issue and reason to vote at the polls.
Furthermore, spending time on Twitter as the president of the United States (or anywhere for that matter) is simply unproductive. Even as students we know firsthand that it is impossible to accomplish all the tasks and assignments in our workload if we invest more time into social media than our education.
While America continues to struggle in the midst of a world-wide pandemic, economic crisis, social injustice and police brutality, in addition to dealing with wildfires, hurricanes, and anything else imaginable to top off this crazy year we call 2020, the president continues to spend a massive amount of time every single day on a social media platform–often stirring up more controversy and problems than solving the issues at hand.
Throughout history, each president has been criticized, critiqued, vetted and challenged in order to hold to the same high standards created by the founding fathers. When analyzing how a president spends their time, it is America’s duty to question whether or not social media such as Twitter should even be something engaged in by the person holding the highest position in the land. If we do not stop to question, or even merely consider these actions, far greater issues that may arise in the future will also be overlooked and ignored.
