After Election Day, incoming executives have two jobs: assemble a cabinet and act presidential.
And for the most part, Trump’s winning the transition. That’s why he needs to take Jeb Bush’s advice and quit Twitter. The recent John Lewis controversy provides the latest example of an unnecessary fight which distracts from his priorities.
While Trump’s cabinet picks were sailing through their Senate confirmation hearings, Bush’s quip about Twitter seemed kind of cliché. The failed presidential candidate joked last week that the First Lady should steal Trump’s phone to keep him from tweeting. But then then, as if to prove Bush’s point, Trump decided to fight a civil rights icon on the weekend of Martin Luther King’s birthday.
Suddenly the low-energy also-ran seemed prescient.
By feuding with Lewis, Trump leaned into the caricature of a racist Republican. After the Georgia Democrat announced he wouldn’t attend the inauguration, Trump erupted. Apparently unaware that Lewis braved the billy clubs of racist cops, organized the 1963 March on Washington, and stood arm-in-arm with King, Trump said he was “all talk, talk, talk.” Democrats couldn’t have written a better script.
Angry that Lewis wouldn’t come to his party, Trump wasted his momentum. With three days before the inauguration, nobody’s talking about Obama’s policy and political failures. Instead, Democrats get to take free shots at Republicans.
Some will defend Trump’s penchant for Twitter. Sure, the technology gives him the power to communicate directly with the public while sending the media into a tizzy. And yes, once in a while it works (like that time he Tweeted about Kanye West to distract from Rex Tillerson’s Russia record). But this Twitter spat is different.
After coming from behind to win, Trump promised to be “president for all Americans” on Election Night. It was something that was “so important to me,” he said. If that’s true, the next president should probably refrain from insulting the last living leader of the American Civil Rights movement.
Trump doesn’t need to respond to every insult or attack. After all, he’s about to become president. He won it all. So with four days left before inauguration, Trump should relax for a bit and log off Twitter.
By doing otherwise, Trump would do more than prove Bush right. He’d play the racist foil for Democrats to attack over the next four years.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
