You get the feeling that Donald Trump does not really follow anybody on Twitter—that in the small hours of the morning, the swirling vortex of neuroses and grievances that drive him formulate themselves into a tweet, which he then punches out into the universe before staring at his mentions for the next 20 minutes, growing angrier and stronger, the vortex darkening and swirling until it forms another tweet, continuing the cycle.
As such, he only actually follows a couple dozen people—family members, his own businesses, “friendly” politicians and pundits, and, for a brief moment yesterday, the incredibly popular “Emergency Kittens” account. At some 1.85 million followers, Emergency Kittens is the premier source of cat-related content on Twitter, repurposing images of cats from elsewhere on the internet with pithy new Twitter-friendly commentary. Here are some good guys:
It is a fine Twitter account, and worthy of the president-elect’s attention, signaling perhaps that our first meme president was willing to reach across the aisle to other types of internet content. The possibility of Secretary Of The Interior Chewbacca Mom did not seem that far off.
But no: Just a few hours after suggesting support for kittens, the ever-impetuous Trump unfollowed the account, as documented by Emergency Kittens itself.
Given that most of Trump’s other follows are carefully picked to show his allegiances, this had seemed, briefly, a bellwether for a pro-kitten administration, which makes about as much sense as anything else he has done. Now it is just another backtrack to be added to Trump’s post-election log, including his famous wall, which has magically turned into a fence, and his pledge to “drain the swamp” of Washington shifting to making the swamp even swampier. He also did not get to see these cats in buckets.
His loss.