Donald Trump likes to say that having a Twitter account is "like owning the New York Times without the losses.”
The handle @realDonaldTrump is his vehicle for quickly responding to world events, attacks from his rivals or media reports about him. He has assembled a following of more than 8 million, and with just a few key strokes — or words dictated to an employee equipped with a phone — Trump can order them into action, informing them of Hillary Clinton's latest shortcoming or alerting them to his latest discovery of a dishonest reporter. Trump rewards their dedication by regularly retweeting some of their most flattering comments about him, a process that involves no vetting and has led the candidate to spread the messages of self-described white supremacists and at least one bot created to trick him.
