Courtesy of Bastrop Advertiser
Nov. 4, 2021
By Bill McCann
Have you heard about TRUTH Social? No, it isn’t a dating app for singles seeking an honest relationship. It’s former President Donald Trump’s newly announced venture to compete with social media giants like Twitter and Facebook. He hopes for a test launch this month and full rollout in 2022.
An angry Trump apparently cooked up the idea for his own social media network after being kicked off Twitter and Facebook following an insurrection by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Trump helped instigate the insurrection by spreading election-fraud lies.
In an announcement on Oct. 20, Trump said his social network would “stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech.” The problem is – to borrow a line from Jack Nicholson’s character in the movie “A Few Good Men” – Trump can’t handle the truth. Trump used Twitter as a major megaphone of misinformation throughout his presidency. During Trump’s four years in office, he made 30,573 false or misleading claims, according to Washington Post fact checkers.
Aside from the fact that the words “truth” and “Trump” don’t belong in the same sentence, Trump’s history of failed businesses does not bode well for his new venture. His companies have filed for bankruptcy six times. Plus, he has had a lengthy list of failures, including Trump Airlines, Trump Steaks and Trump Mortgage. Who would fly in a plane, buy meat or borrow money from this guy? And don’t forget Trump University, his real estate training “school” that paid a $25 million settlement to duped students.
While TRUTH Social states it “encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology,” its terms of service prohibit users from using the platform to “disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site,” National Public Radio reported. In other words, you can say any crazy thing you want as long as you don’t diss Trump. It’s the kind of free speech that only Trumpublicans could love.
One ominous sign for Trump’s new social network occurred last spring when he yanked a blog called From the Desk of Donald J. Trump after only a month due to low readership. But some critics think that even if TRUTH Social doesn’t resonate with social media users, he might enrich himself anyway. And that’s always Trump’s priority.
TRUTH Social will be the first product of a new company called Trump Media & Technology Group, which is merging with a special-purpose acquisition firm to form a publicly traded company. Critics suggest that if Trump can convince enough of his supporters to buy stock, he could end up with a pile of money.In any event, Trump needs to find a better name for his new network. TRUTH Social is dull. It doesn’t say what it’s really about. I asked a friend for ideas. Here’s what we came up with to make it more appealing – and accurate.
- Trumpspeak – a variation of Newspeak, the language of the totalitarian superstate in George Orwell’s novel 1984.
- Alternative Facts – the description used by former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway to defend lies about attendance at Trump’s inauguration.
Two-Faced Book – where Trump can keep speaking out of both sides of his mouth. - PentaGram – for all those little devils who keep believing everything Trump says.
- Pravda-a-Lago. It would promote Trump’s Florida resort that he often visited at taxpayer expense as president. Also, Pravda, formerly the official Communist Party newspaper of the Soviet Union, is the Russian word for truth. It would pay homage to Trump’s friend, Russian authoritarian president Vladimir Putin. In exchange, Putin might even buy stock in Trump’s new business. It wouldn’t be the first time he has helped Trump out.
McCann is a contributing columnist for the Advertiser. He is a retired journalist and may be reached at [email protected].
