For four years, America has been ruled by the tyranny of tweets, and the news media has been tangled in threads. Twitter threads are a way for journalists to gather information and to promote their work; Virginia Heffernan wrote in Politico that they have become the “literary form of the Trump era.” In some ways, virality has enabled marginalized voices to be heard, but an ecosystem ruled by likes and retweets is one in which nothing really has to be true, everything is entirely possible, and notoriety confers legitimacy. Traditional news outlets, vying for attention, reward online popularity with op-eds and TV guest spots, an ecosystem that has, in turn, given rise to a new class of political pundit—those who use Twitter threads to offer cheap clarity amid chaos.
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