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...the taming of CMDROpAtLargeCA offered a glimpse into an administration in damage control mode.It is one thing to be demoted. It is another thing entirely to lose your social media megaphone. In this administration, there may be no worse fate.
President Trump rules by social media and it’s difficult to be a power player in his court if you’re not power posting, too. To lose one’s account is to lose the ability to brag about all the righteous work one does for him. It means losing the ability to tar one’s common enemy. How is one supposed to build a profile within the MAGA universe if one cannot post?
Mr. Bovino, 55, seemed to understand all of this. He used his X account to mix it up with journalists, lawmakers, critics, fans, Stephen King — whoever. CMDROpAtLargeCA became an expression of the persona he crafted for himself, every bit as important as the coat and the haircut.
Even though it became clear that Mr. Bovino would be the one to take the fall, it was somehow surprising that he would be suspended from social media. There was really nothing about his behavior online that wasn’t perfectly in keeping with how his superiors behave online.
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It’s hard to imagine what was off-kilter about the way Mr. Bovino was using social media. After all, the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, the Labor Department and other sectors of this administration have spent the year posting references to neo-Nazi literature, QAnon conspiracy theories and white-supremacist song lyrics on official government accounts.
EXCELLENT article by Shawn McCreesh, NYT
