100 Days Without Trump on Twitter: A Nation Scrolls More Calmly

Democrats are breathing easier. Republicans are crying censorship. For all of the country’s news consumers, a strange quiet has descended after a four-year bombardment of presidential verbiage.

That soothing sound that Gary Cavalli hears emanating from Twitter these days? It is the sound of silence — specifically, the silence of former President Donald J. Trump. “My blood pressure has gone down 20 points,” said Mr. Cavalli, 71, whose obsessive hate-following of Mr. Trump ended for good when Twitter permanently barred the former president in January. “Not having to read his latest dishonest tweets has made my life so much happier.” It seems like just yesterday, or perhaps a lifetime ago, that Mr. Trump swaggered through the corridors of Twitter as if he owned the place, praising himself and denigrating his enemies in an endless stream of poorly punctuated, creatively spelled, factually challenged ALL-CAPS DIATRIBES that inflamed, delighted and terrified the nation to varying degrees. That all ended on Jan. 8, two days after a mob egged on by his incendiary remarks had stormed the United States Capitol in an ill-conceived effort to overturn the results of the presidential election.