I’m pretty sure I will never be signing up for Truth Social, Donald Trump’s answer to Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the social media universe for normal people.
Pretty much the only reason I have spent 13-plus years on Facebook is so I can keep up with people I love and care about. I have completely given up trying to change people’s minds about politics, and I have spent the equivalent of three or four months in some variation of Facebook jail for being misinterpreted.
I do use it to extend and promote this Website, and I have let people know about my books that were published in 2021 and 2022. Aside from that, though, I’m not sure I see a great deal of value in it.
But Truth Social? Generally, anything involving both truth and Trump is the worst kind of oxymoron.
I saw a piece by columnist Dana Milbank on the Washington Post website Friday in which he essentially said he signed up for Trump, er, Truth Social to save us from having to do it.
Thank you, Mister Milbank.
Without your column, I wouldn’t know how deeply Hunter Biden was involved in supporting those evil Ukranians against the godly Vladimir Putin.
Or that his father Joe is a pedophile. Hunter’s father, not Vlad’s.
Of course what we’re witnessing here is the negative side of the Internet. The negative side of the First Amendment, too.
Should out-and-out lying be covered by the principle of free speech? I know some things are a matter of opinion, but it’s certainly untrue to tell people that President Biden’s surviving son is involved in helping those Nazified Ukranians commit biological warfare against those gentle, freedom-loving Russians.
It amazes me that so many people on the right choose to believe in Putin over the political opposition in their own country. Also that despite the fact that almost everything they read from the opposition is seen as a lie, they assume everything — no matter how outrageous — their side says is assumed to be true.
I don’t think that’s the case at all. I actually think they have given up on our society and that what they want more than anything else is for the people they hate to suffer even more than they do.
Are the people they listen to lying to them? Almost certainly, but all that really matters to them is thatc the Trumps, the Hannitys, the Carlsons and the rest infuriate the people they hate.
Ain’t America grand?
***
I was reading through one of my favorite books a little while ago when I came across a line that made me laugh.
I wrote the line — and all the lines around it — but I still got a kick out of it.
My main character is flirting with his girlfriend and he does a Groucho Marx impression, telling her “You’ve got a body that was made for love.”
Her sarcastic response is, “Which one of the Marx Brothers was that supposed to be?”
I remember in my first draft, her line was “Which one of the Marx Brothers was that supposed to be? Gummo?”
Not a bad line in itself, but I came up with a better one for the final draft.
“Which one of the Marx Brothers was that supposed to be? Karl?”
Now that’s funny.