Either intentionally or unintentionally, President Trump is creating the narrative about his administration through his use of social media.

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He’s most using noticeably Twitter, and it’s intriguing in two respects. It’s not as though the president has restricted all sources of information, and left us only with state-sponsored propaganda, many people rely on his social media presence to be a source of information about the presidency and the state of our country. Unfortunately, the president’s turbulent use of social media as a platform for malicious attacks belittles the office he serves.

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Setting aside the fact that Twitter in no way should be someone’s only source of information, according to Pew Research, 64% of Americans admit that social media is where they derive much of their information about current events. It’s no surprise with social media being a much more time-oriented way of exchange information as opposed to traditional mediums. But more often than not, recently, President Trump continues to show how he intends to use Twitter, to stir up the pot.  

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Right from the start, the president has looked to shift the scope of the course of events that dealt with his administration. In the days following his inauguration, his then Communication Director Sean Spicer vigorously attempted to paint Trump’s inauguration as having the largest physically present and television viewing audience in the history of our country, PERIOD. When evidence was presented to the contrary, the president went on the make even more dubious claims that vast voter fraud across the country was the reason for his nearly two million vote gap between himself and opponent Hillary Clinton for the popular vote. Quelling the real misrepresentation at the time.

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Another glossed over event happened several months later when the Attorney General Jeff Sessions mislead a Senate committee on alleged connections between Trump’s campaign team himself and Russian entities. Sessions found himself in hot water due to his testimony, which inadvertently pulled the president’s administration in. Trump would again take to Twitter to make claims that former administration, specifically President Obama, had enacted measures to wiretap Trump Tower in New York City throughout the recent race for the presidency. The next several days the majority of political news coverage dealt specifically with the outlandish claims the president had made, subsequently pulling Session’s feet from the fire of public scrutiny. To this day, the president has yet to foster any sort of source or information to back up the claim and it's almost certain that evidence never existed in the first place.

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   The most recent and notable happened following the final blow to an attempt by Senate Republicans to repeal and replace Obamacare. Several key Republicans announced their choice to vote “no” on what many dubbed the Graham-Cassidy Bill, arguing it lacked crucial in-depth legislation that health care reform would require to succeed. During this, President Trump took to Twitter to stir the pot on the ongoing hot-button issues with NFL players kneeling during the national anthem as a silent protest against police brutality and injustice people of color face systematically.

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In a recent rally in Alabama — you know because all presidents go on a victory lap after taking the presidency — Trump peddled to the crowd and many of supporters by claiming that NFL owners should fire those “sons of bitches” that have the audacity to kneel while honoring the flag. He continues to Tweet support for his stance, but it just seems there are far more important debates we should be having opposed to the pissing contest of patriotism the president has seemingly turned this issue into. Perhaps the systematic racism and inequality that the players are referring to?

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With some success and multiple flops, President Trump has brought it upon himself to attempt to shape the narrative no matter the consequences or backlash his administration may face. As long as he can shift the scope, it appears a job well done. Those who spend their time trying to keep up with the constant barrage of information streaming out of Washington, credible or not, know just how tumultuous the first year of this presidency has been. However, as one works through the weeds, a noticeable correlation between certain flops and Trump’s insidious Twitter rampages are becoming more apparent.

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And while he might not be the first president to attempt to divert dialogue, he does have the largest audience ever at the touch of his tiny fingers.