Trump's Twitter Speech: Short Speeches, Sound Bites, and Politics in the Digital Age. Or, Who Needs Facts, Anyway?

Faced with likely impeachment and possible removal from office, Donald Trump combined the two things he does best: posting on Twitter and giving speeches. A few days ago, he attacked his opponents in a 30-second Twitter speech. He called impeachment "a scam." Most Twitter speeches are clips from speeches that were first given at more public forums, but Trump’s speech was created to be posted on social media. It lived only on social media. And it was very, very short. By my count (see my previous post), Trump made nine attacks against his opponents in half a minute. Trump did not prove his points. No one can prove, document, or even illustrate nine accusations in 30 seconds. So what was Trump doing? The political environment, which has long been driven by partisanship, does not invite serious discussion. Trump is “Teflon Don” because he understands that short, shallow, mindless, partisan persuasive messages rule American politics.

First, the day is long past when most voters listen to entire speeches. Although hundreds or even thousands of people show up for Trump’s rallies, they represent only a tiny fraction of voters. A politician (including Trump) who gives a campaign rally speech hopes to get maybe 10 seconds pasted into the evening news. The rest of the speech is for show.

Second, most politicians spend most of their campaign budget on television advertising. The typical campaign advertisement is only 30 seconds. A political advertisement’s text is often even more shallow than Trump’s Twitter speech. Consider, for example, George W. Bush’s series of infamous 2004 commercials, which showed menacing wolves prowling through the woods while a husky-voiced announcer intoned this shallow, inaccurate text:

“In an increasingly dangerous world, even after the first terrorist attack on America, John Kerry and the liberals in Congress voted to slash America’s intelligence operations. By $6 billion. Cuts so deep, they would have weakened America’s defenses. And weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm.”

The wolf commercials combined a fear appeal combined with a misleading statistic that FactCheck.org debunked easily. The real question, though, is, how much information can one present in 30 seconds? Not much, obviously. But drivel like that helped Bush win the election, did it not? So why won't drivel work for Trump, too?

Here's the crux: issues don't make much difference. Alas, most people make political decisions superficially on the basis of party loyalty, group membership, religion, ethnicity, and similar factors. Of those, partisanship ranks first.  Social scientists have known this for many years. In the 1950’s, Bernard Berleson, Paul Lazersfeld, and William McPhee investigated how people make voting decisions, and their conclusions still stand more than half a century later.  Indeed, an international research team led by Dartmouth College’s Sean J. Westwood concluded in 2015 that “in integrated and divided nations alike, citizens are more strongly attached to political parties than to the social groups that the parties represent.”

Unlike most of his opponents, Trump understands perfectly well that impeachment is as much a political process as a legal one. His 30-second Twitter speech addresses raw partisanship – and nothing else.

That is why Trump could describe impeachment as a “scam.” Given the evidence so far, it obviously is no scam, but partisanship drives Republican primary voters to sympathize with his complaint. His attack on the Democrats didn’t need to prove that the Democrats are bad; he just needed to sound partisan: 

“The Democrats want to take away your guns; they want to take away your healthcare: they want to take away your vote: they want to take away your freedom; they want to take away your judges; they want to take away everything.”

As long as he maintains his base’s support, Trump has little to fear from a Senate trial. Since partisanship drives people’s political decisions, and voter attitudes drive the Senate’s decisions, Trump’s strategy, which is to appeal the raw partisanship, is exactly on point. And Trump doesn’t need to hold onto all Republican voters. He only needs to hold onto the primary election voters, who tend to be the most partisan and ideological. As long as they support him, Republican Senators will fear primary challenges from the right and they may hold firm for Trump.

Trump’s defense, like the defenses offered by his Republican supporters, has been incredibly shallow and mostly irrelevant to the issues. However, Americans are used to hearing shallow discussions – that’s why 30-second campaign ads and 10-second soundbites on the evening news make such a difference – and that is why Trump’s 30-second Twitter speech has a chance to persuade the primary voters whom Trump needs to reach. So far, Trump has displayed terrible judgment about legal issues, but his political instincts hold strong.

Will Trump survive impeachment proceedings? Based on the evidence we’ve seen so far, his legal case seems to be extremely weak. But as long as pro-Trump partisan attitudes hold within his base, he could still complete his term in office. Time will tell.