Trump's Appearance on Truth Social Reminds Us 'Truths' Is a Perfect Name for These Un-Tweets
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Donald Trump has ascended triumphantly to his own social-media platform, Truth Social, billed as an alternative to Twitter where free speech can frolic in the idyllic meadows of liberty and justice. This is as opposed to the Tweet Machine, a totalitarian hellscape that, unless it is bought and taken private by a rich guy who's got all our best interests at heart, could soon herald the demise of the discourse—or, perhaps, the American republic itself. (Is Elon Musk really going to swipe his Amex on this in the end? Your mileage may vary.) Twitter is censoring conservatives, you see, so they're often found talking loudly (on Twitter) about decamping to another platform where there are no libs to own. Fat chance. Anyway, the former president posted a "Truth" on Thursday—it's like a tweet, but True—and in fairness, it fuckin' slaps:
This is a wistful reminder that if Trump had just stayed a private citizen and sounded off whenever he felt like it about Robert Pattinson or whatever, we all could have enjoyed ourselves. He could have stuck with reality TV, or become a media columnist for the New York Post. Instead, he ended up trying to overthrow the duly elected government of the United States based on a whole universe of deranged nonsense about massive election fraud that happened to occur only in swing states Trump lost and/or Hugo Chavez. This is the kind of stuff that will find a happy home on Truth Social, we can safely assume, where Trump has also made a home—finally, kind of—after getting thrown off Twitter following the aforementioned autogolpe attempt.
It should go without saying that the funding and ownership structure behind this venture is totally above-board: Trump Media & Technology Group was designed to go public almost as soon as it was created using a Wall Street creation known as a SPAC. Trump's eponymous firm merged with "Digital World Acquisition Corp.," a kind of shell company known as a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), which is a way to bring a company public quicker and with less due diligence than a traditional initial public offering (IPO). By some accounts, these vehicles pose particular risk to ordinary retail investors. Not to worry, though: Trump has a record of always putting his investors first.
But maybe the most revealing part of all this is the name. Not "Truth Social," really, but the term "Truths" for the messages people post on this thing. Say what you will about Twitter, but the language is pretty self-aware: people are twittering away on this platform, sharing random thoughts of varying value and accuracy, hopefully working together, slowly, towards the ultimate (if unattainable) goal of discerning the full truth on questions large and small. There is a kind of modesty to that terminology, the same modesty that undergirds the scientific method and the theme running through the works of more than one philosopher that wisdom is knowing how much you don't know.
Obviously, Twitter is full of arrogant assholes, but the platform itself at least does not label things in a way that feeds that arrogance—though its creators do continually talk about it as The Digital Public Square, or whatever. And the alternative is a platform where everyone gets to post their own Truths, which are true by benefit of having been posted by someone, because everyone is entitled to their own reality. It is truly a platform built in Trump's image. For a long time now, the truth has been whatever you can get enough people to believe. Posting something on the Internet does not make it a Truth, though, unless the the word has strayed so far from describing accuracy in relation to observable reality that it really does mean anything at all.
Or maybe they just thought it was a good name. In which case, they were wrong. Elon agrees, though surely he knows there's a reason this is the one thing Trump didn't plaster his name on.
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