To the Editor:

Noticeably absent from the Nov. 3 special section on “The Twitter Presidency” was an iota of self-reflection. Imagine how different our republic might be today if the media had refused to cover President Trump’s tweets from the start.

This administration might actually have been forced into more traditional forms of facing the public. The citizenry would not be subjected to mercurial rantings from the White House in which government policies change within the same day depending upon the number of “likes” received.

Sadly, we will never know.

Kim Hunter

St. Paul

To the Editor:

Among the practices that should be adopted immediately following the Trump presidency (may the day come as soon as possible), let’s add a new one: no tweets from any president, ever. The president has many other channels of communication. Certainly, the rest of the government, and the military, should never regard a tweet as a declaration of policy or an order for action; this principle should be legislated if necessary.

So kudos to The Times for shining a light on this, and kudos to Twitter for leading the way toward taming the destructive power of social media by refusing all political ads.