Trump is a Twittertarian: a distraction despot in the age of social media

President Trump is a Twittertarian, an authoritarian in an age of social media. As a master Twittertarian, Trump deflects attention from one heinous attack on basic decency and constitutional governance by committing another.

Peeved that the despicable “dog” Omarosa Manigault Newman is dominating the news? Revoke the security of clearance of another critic, the former CIA director chief John Brennan! No point pretending deflection wasn’t the intention. The statement about Brennan was dated 26 July; the president was simply waiting for the right moment to play the distraction card.

The White House did wave at a few reasons for revoking Brennan’s clearance. But the grounds given – Brennan’s “erratic conduct and behavior”, his “frenzied commentary” and his “wild outbursts on the internet and television” – fail the straight-face test. Instead, they supply brilliant insight into the bizarre projections of narcissistic leadership. Just whom exactly did the Twittertarian really have in mind?

For his part, Brennan explained the actual reason for the revocation: “This action is part of a broader effort by Mr Trump to suppress freedom of speech & punish critics. It should gravely worry all Americans, including intelligence professionals, about the cost of speaking out. My principles are worth far more than clearances. I will not relent.”

Nor will the free press. Remarkably, on the same day that the nation is digesting the news of Brennan’s punishment, newspapers across country have editorialized in unison, robustly defending press liberties against the unprecedented attacks issuing from the Oval Office.

As Brennan himself has noted, the two events are not unrelated, a point not lost on the president. In an early morning tweet, Trump accused the Boston Globe, the paper that called for the act of editorial solidarity, of being “in COLLUSION with other papers on free press”.

Granted, the tweet made little sense, and clarity was not restored by the president’s concluding exclamation, “PROVE IT!”. But presumably the president meant to suggest that newspapers from the Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota to the Tampa Bay Times in Florida are conspiring to bring him down by trucking in fake stories, just as the intelligence communities of the Deep State are colluding to remove him from office with false allegations of wrongdoing.

In a later tweet, the president insisted: “There is nothing that I would want more for our Country than true FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.” The ALL CAPS shouldn’t draw our attention from the little word that is doing the real work of the tweet – true. For Trump, true freedom of the press is a press that does not expose corruption, reveal lies and lay bare hypocrisy. It is a press that is beholden, not independent; friendly, not critical. It is Fox & Friends.

Brennan and the free press have stood up to the president’s bullying. Not all have shown the same temerity. Congressional Republicans have, with several notable exceptions, turned into invertebrates, too craven, complacent or complicit to challenge the president. Which is not to deny that challenging a man who is profoundly vindictive and exceptionally powerful can come at a cost.

So while Trump’s stripping Brennan of his clearance was, in Bob Corker’s words, a “banana republic kind of thing”, more disturbing was the president’s threat to revoke the clearance of Bruce Ohr. Ohr, a Harvard-educated mid-level figure in the justice department, has been targeted by Trump thanks to the false claim that Ohr mishandled sensitive intelligence provided by a British spy about then candidate Trump. Brennan is a retired eminence, a moose-head; Ohr is a government employee whose career is at stake. Brennan needs no defense from Trump. Ohr does. The question is who will provide it.

Millions are looking – praying – for Mueller to do so. But those who hope that Mueller’s investigation will deliver us from this Twittertarian nightmare hope in vain. Even the most meticulous and incriminating report will not remove Trump from office – not with the support he enjoys among the vast majority of Republicans.

More promising was something I was told while camping last month. I struck up a conversation with another camper who, without prompting, said: “I voted for Trump. And I regret that I did.” It was the most hopeful thing I’d heard in a long time.

• Lawrence Douglas is professor of law, jurisprudence and social thought at Amherst College, Massachusetts