Earlier this morning, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted out on an incident that occurred on Thursday, where a Chinese naval vessel in the South China sea seized a U.S. military drone that was operating lawfully within international waters.
The tweet, which has now been deleted, included a spelling error. Where the president elect meant to say that China was unprecedented in their actions, he initially tweeted out saying it was “unpresidented”. This is neither a real word, nor the correct spelling of his intended word. He later fixed his spelling error, tweeting out a corrected version.
China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters – rips it out of water and takes it to China in unprecedented act.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 17, 2016
When looking at the event that occurred, causing the President-elect to yet again take to Twitter, the facts are clear. The U.S. government had an underwater drone approximately 50 nautical miles northwest of the Subic Bay of the Philippines, that was seized by a Chinese ship. The U.S. pentagon immediately stated it was being used for oceanic research, and was marked clearly as U.S. property. The drone was supposed to be collected by the U.S. in less than a week. The issue between the two countries came up when discussing the fact that the drone was in international waters. China claimed it was in their waters, while the U.S. said it was not. China’s Defense Ministry later said, on Saturday, that they were discussing the return of the drone, however the “hyping” up of the issue was inappropriate, causing the smooth resolution of the issue to become harder than it should have been. China recently decided to return the equipment to the U.S. in an appropriate manner, and stated that China and the U.S. had been in communication about the drone the entire time.
Many are saying that this spelling error is not a big deal, and that those attempting to trend the hashtags of “#notmyprecedent” and “#unpresidented” are blowing something out of proportion. However, there is a serious issue when looking at the error in Donald Trump’s tweet.
There is a blatant disregard to detail shown in Trumps actions, especially in this incident.
Donald Trump sent out a tweet to 17.5 million people, with inflammatory language towards the Chinese people and government; but did not bother to even check it over to see if it was correctly worded or spelled. While the tweet was only up for approximately 87 seconds, it was long enough for millions of people to see it. It brought even more drama to the issue that was being handled by the current President and Government.
Seeing Donald Trump’s trend of taking his issues to Twitter, there have been arguments in recent months over whether or not his tweets should be taken as official foreign policy. The U.S. State Department has been trying to figure out how to handle the President-elect’s tweets, who uses his social media platforms much more spontaneously than any other President ever has. Many people, on all sides of the issue, have taken to various social media platforms to voice their thoughts on Trump’s “unpresidented” tweet, as well as his use of Twitter in general.
Trump spelling actually is a serious indicator of no attention to detail or accuracy in anything he says or does.
— Lawrence O’Donnell (@Lawrence) December 17, 2016
That sound you just heard was 10,000 future Trump biographers rushing at once to copyright the title “Unpresidented.”
— Life’s Scary Enough (@BilgeEbiri) December 17, 2016
In the coming hours, please focus less on Trump’s spelling problems and more on the content of this tweet: https://t.co/h9hkjSd47u
— Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) December 17, 2016
The next few years in the White House is shaping up to be #unpresidented #DonaldTrump #NotMyPresident
— Banks Bvhks (@bvhks) December 17, 2016
Pettiness breeds the ultimate idiocy. Example: Liberals flipping their lids over Donald Trump making a grammatical error. #Unpresidented
— Brittany Pettibone (@BrittPettibone) December 17, 2016
Donald Trump, “I know words, I have the best words”. #unpresidented
— Mike (@thedecider99) December 17, 2016
Even Merriam-Webster Dictionary had something to say about the situation.
Good morning! The #WordOfTheDay is…not ‘unpresidented’. We don’t enter that word. That’s a new one. https://t.co/BJ45AtMNu4
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) December 17, 2016
President-elect Trump, as the future leader of the most powerful country in the world, should be held up to high standards. His human error of misspelling would not be a big deal, if he was not to be President in less than 33 days. Seeing as he will have a high security clearance, top secret information, and data, his professionalism will be critical to the well being of the entire world. He cannot continue to make errors in such petty things as angry tweets, and he cannot keep pandering on the “I am not a politician, I am real person.” ideal. He is soon going to be the President of the United States of America, and should start acting like it.
