http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/huppke/ct-delete-your-account-trump-huppke-20160610-story.html

Tweets are silly things, usually.

Whether they come from a political candidate with millions of Twitter followers or a regular person with five followers, they rarely amount to much — 140 characters, a sentence or two, a pointed statement or a joke or a mundane observation.

But a tweet came along yesterday that just might have some significance. It was three words posted to Hillary Clinton's Twitter account and, all but certainly, not written by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee herself.

The words came in response to a tweet by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, he of great Twitter notoriety. Shortly after President Barack Obama endorsed Clinton for president, Trump blabber-tweeted: "Obama just endorsed Crooked Hillary. He wants four more years of Obama — but nobody else does!"

The response on Clinton's Twitter account was swift, merciless and hysterical: "Delete your account."

Boom.

For those of you lucky enough to be unfamiliar with social media and with Twitter in particular, "delete your account" is a well-known phrase. It's a devastating response to someone who's attacking you or blathering on about something, a pointed statement that says: "Stop it. You're meaningless. Quit Twitter and go peddle your nonsense elsewhere."

For maximum effect, that line can only be dispatched when the setup is perfect. Trump's setup was just that, somebody on Clinton's social media team saw an opportunity and, by any measure, delivered an epic burn.

There's no coming back from a well-placed "delete your account." All social media users worth their time-wasting credentials know when they've been owned. It's over — move on.

I know you're asking why I think all this silliness matters. It's certainly possible that it doesn't, but to me that "delete your account" bomb felt like a moment, a moment that had nothing directly to do with Clinton herself.

The reaction online — and soon after on news websites and blogs and cable news channels — felt, in many cases, ebullient. It was as if people were waiting for someone to stand up and succinctly say: "Enough. Enough internet-troll-style comments from a bully masquerading as a man of the people. We'll deal in facts and reality and you can have your noise and nonsense and bug off."

It was a shutdown. It was a palm to the face of a person who bubbled up out of an eight-year stew of anti-Obama hyperbole and angry talk-radio rants.

This isn't to say Clinton is pure of heart and will run a fact-filled campaign. Nothing of the sort.

But with each passing day — as Trump finds new ways to reinforce the fears many even in his own party have of him — it becomes harder for any honest person to say that Clinton isn't, at the very least, the more sane of the two.

She hasn't gone after a judge because of his race. She hasn't offended entire swaths of the population with crass policy suggestions — mass deportations, a ban on Muslims entering the country — that are grounded more in bias than in fact.

Emails are a profane look at Trump supporters

Clinton hasn't been perfect either, far from it. But when House Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest-ranking Republican, is describing something Trump said as "the textbook definition of a racist comment" and Sen. Marco Rubio is saying he still wouldn't trust Trump with the country's nuclear codes, your party's candidate has some serious problems.

And then some wily social media person comes along and tweets: "Delete your account."

Those three words were forceful. The tweet declared the gibberish and insult-riddled word salad Trump is tweeting unworthy of attention.

If this is a turning point, it puts pressure on Clinton to speak and tweet honestly and to ground her campaign in facts, not slogans and blah-blah.

I think that's what people want, and I think that's why those three words seemed to resonate so strongly.

Some will lap up whatever verbal glop Trump ladles out, but many are growing tired of the noise and the conspiracies, the boasts and transparent ignorance, the schoolyard nastiness and the name-calling.

Delete your account.

That can be more than just a good tweet. That can be a rallying cry against vitriol and baseless hatred.

And this can be the moment people started to tune out Trump.

rhuppke@tribpub.com

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3249852&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310900#30669908)

Delete your life.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3249852&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310900#30669967)

http://www.arcamax.com/jsnews/images/columns/rexhuppke.jpg

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3249852&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310900#30670451)

he should have just responded no u

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3249852&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310900#30670474)

meteor please god. just end all this now.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3249852&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310900#30670540)

JFC

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3249852&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310900#30670588)

Truly devastating

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3249852&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310900#30670685)

Edit: oh wait you were the OP posting it as though it was a brilliant takedown, lol at you faggot

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3249852&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310900#31889404)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3249852&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310900#33398690)