As my history teacher says, the study of history isn’t the study of people, places, or even dates in time, but the study of the written word. With every presidency that’s come before this we’ve had manifestos to decode, declarations to decipher, and rallying calls to help us understand the motivations behind past events. We had President Lincoln’s address scribbled on a napkin, FDRs’ “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  President Obama’s address to the nation after the Newtown massacre. With President Trump, we have 140 characters.

The question becomes how does that change, the “written” word, the presidency and in turn history? While I’d like to say social media changes it positively in the same way that FDR’s radio addresses united the country, and how the Nixon and Kennedy debate ignited political fervor in the country, I am unconvinced. Unfortunately, social media is not an agent of unity, but one that tears us apart. When you give the most powerful man in the world the ability to silence his naysayers, you give him unprecedented amounts of power. The beauty in a democracy is the ability to write, and speak out against our government, with the hopes maybe someone with some power sees it.

President Trump has blocked writers, comedians, and actors on twitter silencing their ability to participate in democracy. While this may fall low on many Americans “List of Things To Be Worried About in a Trump Presidency”, in my opinion the stifling of freedom of speech in our country should rise to the top of the list.

While our presidents most outrageous tweets grab the attention of the media, not enough has been discussed about the truly negative effects of the first “ social media president.” While you might be thinking “what’s the big deal, he blocked a couple people on twitter?” Well, unfortunately the squandering of Americans ability to have a meaningful dialogue with their president is just scratching the surface of what Trump’s twitter can do.

In the recent history of this country we have made great strides to ensure every American has an opportunity to participate equally in democracy. But, what President Trump’s twitter account as done is effectively given the most powerful bully in the world a platform on which he can ridicule anyone he wants at anytime. The fact that this is not being reigned in is terrifying. When you block users, it is an obvious attempt to silence the opposition in a way which is only comparable to totalitarian regimes.  If you look beyond this, you get into the the attacks on character which the President has waged from the comfort of his home.

“Lying Ted” “Crooked Hillary”- since his bid for President began, Trump has used twitter as a platform for bullying those he deemed his opposition. This is the most frightening of all things Trump has used twitter to do, and the one that should frighten Americans the most, never before as a President acted like a schoolyard bully, and never before have they had a platform to bully from. This toxic mixture has the potential to be incredibly detrimental to our country. So for now all I think we can do is hope that one day, one day soon, President Trump decides he has had enough tweeting for one lifetime, and begins to speak and write with the eloquence and poise as those who came before him.