Tweets may be Donald Trump’s mangled version of a presidential fireside chat, but he doesn’t want everyone reading what he writes — or, more importantly, responding, especially if the comments are negative. So he is blocking a growing number of critics from his Twitter account.
Several Americans denied access to messages direct from the president-elect’s fingers are accepting their tweet-less Trump fates as a badge of honor — or at least an opportunity for lots of snide comments — at #blockedbyTrump.
“Ha ha ha really he has time for this shit? @realDonaldTrump don’t you have stuff to read up on like the Constitution??” one Tweeter wonders.
Another hopes everyone un-follows Trump so he’ll be forced to speak to the press to get his messages out.
Not all of the blocking has occurred since Trump’s presidential campaign. Several tweeters have been blocked for years, including one who noted that he was blocked after suing Trump University. Trump recently agreed to pay $25 million to settle lawsuits accusing the operation of fraud.
And not everyone is chuckling about being shut out of messages from a president-elect who recently called for national unity and promised to represent all Americans.
“It makes me laugh in a way that’s not funny,” freelance writer Heather Spohr, 37, told the Los Angeles Times. “I can’t see the tweets of the president-elect. He’s going to be my president. It’s absurd.” Spohr was blocked after she tweeted that Trump was “repulsive” because of his feud with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, whom he referred to as a “bimbo.”
“The president should speak to all Americans directly and not filter people out,” New York University presidential historian Timothy Naftali told the L.A. Times. “Are people blocked from watching television or listening to radio when a president gives an address?”
No one knows how many people have been blocked from Trump’s account. He still has 16.3 million followers.
As for President Barack Obama, White House Assistant Press Secretary Patrick Rodenbush tweeted last year when a critic complained that he had been shut out that “nobody is or has ever been blocked from the @POTUS twitter account.”
