Hillary Clinton Just Proved This Election Will Be Determined On Twitter
On Thursday, President Obama officially endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, saying he doesn't think "there's ever been someone so qualified to hold this office."
Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, apparently does not agree with the president.
Not long after the president announced his endorsement, the real estate mogul tweeted:
A few minutes later, Clinton clapped back in a pretty amusing way.
Twitter users seem to have enjoyed this response.
Others commented on the fact that this exchange sets the tone for the rest of the election.
Indeed, it's probably safe to say there are going to be many Twitter battles between the two presumptive nominees for the two major political parties in the US in the months to come.
Social media has revolutionized the nature of American elections.
President Obama's use of Facebook and Twitter helped catapult him to victory in both 2008 and 2012.
Moreover, whether you're on the Trump train or not, it's hard to disagree with the fact the real estate mogul has gained a lot of momentum via his non-stop tweeting.
The New York billionaire has well over eight million followers on Twitter and Facebook (Hillary has around 6.7 million on Twitter and 3.8 million on Facebook), and that gives him a lot of power.
Even when Trump is seemingly losing a debate on Twitter, as he arguably did against Senator Elizabeth Warren a few weeks back, he's still making headlines and maintaining the focus on his campaign by generating a response.
As Trevor Noah put it not long after Ted Cruz dropped out and Trump clinched the Republican nomination,
We really need to take a second to let what has happened here really sink in. Does everyone here understand how historic this is? The last time either major party nominated a total outsider, someone who had never held elected office, was Dwight D. Eisenhower. And that only happened because he beat Hitler. So back then you had to win World War II. Now you just have to win Twitter.
Elections are not won and lost solely on social media, but it does play a massive role in terms of how people get their news and how candidates engage with the general public.
It might sound ridiculous, but a huge part of what determines the outcome of the 2016 election will be how effectively each candidate utilizes platforms like Twitter.
