Former President Donald Trump has changed his tone significantly on his Truth Social page, becoming more obscene, sexist, and vengeful in his tweets as the presidential contenders enter the most heated part of this election year.
In the past week alone, he has reposted statements advocating for the imprisonment of his political rivals, advocating for the reinstatement of “public military tribunals” for individuals such as former President Barack Obama, and cracking a lewd joke about Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton from 2016. It seems like Trump’s profile no longer has the repost of the lewd joke.
However, it would only be visible to Truth Social users. Trump has tended to speak in a more measured manner on other, more popular sites like X and TikTok, as if his message was intended for a far larger audience of American voters.
Truth Social has long been a haven for Trump supporters and sympathizers, where they may freely cling to baseless accusations of election fraud and retaliation, all with the clear chance that Trump himself may view and repost such remarks or “retruthe” them. However, compared to the other platforms, its reach is significantly more limited, essentially keeping things out of the minds and eyes of most Americans.
While having a considerably more controlled presence on bigger platforms like X, Trump has been able to fuel the fury of admirers who post more radical conspiracy theories and demand action on Truth Social.
Trump published and shared an especially severe set of postings on Truth on Wednesday.
One Truth reposted a post titled “How to actually fix the system,” featuring photoshopped images of Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, Hilary Clinton, President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former public health official Anthony Fauci, and Harris sitting in orange jumpsuits behind bars.
“Prosecution of the unselected J6 committee for sedition,” another says, adding, “If you wish to imprison them, confess.” In another, the phrase “All roads lead to Obama” is shown beside an image of Trump seated next to Obama. If you want open military trials, retell the truth.
Additionally, one is a screenshot purportedly taken by X of a response to a picture of Clinton and Harris stating that oral sex “impacted both their careers differently.” Trump has often used his Truth Social platform to disparage his opponents and provide his opinions on the several lawsuits he faces.
As a result, a judge in New York found him in contempt of court for breaking a gag order, partly because of his remarks. He posted a video in March that included a picture of Biden strapped into the back of a pickup vehicle.
In July, he also re-posted a quotation from Ulysses S. Grant that was uttered just after the Civil War began: “There are but two parties now: traitors and patriots.” Grant was referring to former Wyoming GOP Representative Liz Cheney, and he called for a “televised military tribunal.”
However, the assault on Harris was sexualized, which opened up a new front at a time when Harris seemed to be running a more competitive campaign against Trump than Biden did.
When asked about the sexual post involving Clinton and Harris on CNN, senior adviser to President Trump Jason Miller played it down as a “distraction,” attempting to compare it to the criticisms Trump has received from Democrats “ever since he came down the escalator” in 2015 when he announced his first presidential bid.
“I don’t know whether the president viewed the photo alone or the statement on there; I haven’t addressed it with him. “I haven’t asked for that,” Miller said on CNN on Thursday.
Regarding the more extreme posts he makes on Truth Social, Trump’s campaign frequently uses the defense that it hasn’t seen or discussed specific posts with the former president. This reminds me of GOP attempts to ignore Trump’s statements on Twitter while he was in office.
The public may now more easily avoid some of the former president’s most inflammatory postings due to this social media silo. Thousands of app users uniformly admire Trump’s Truth Social account postings, which sometimes earn over a hundred likes in a single day, in contrast to an X post that receives hundreds of thousands of likes.
Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a former member of the Florida GOP, warned MSNBC on Thursday that if Trump’s highly inflammatory remarks do get traction, he may face risk from the larger voters.
“It makes sense for the Harris campaign to ignore this attack and let it speak for itself because it is so, just, beneath a campaign, especially a presidential campaign,” Curbelo said. “With the kinds of swing voters who will ultimately decide this election, this ultimately hurts him.”
Trump’s activity on other social media networks is notably different from his tweets on Truth Social.
His X account, which has over 90 million followers, does not include his most contentious postings on Truth Social. Rather, in response to a recent Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, he has been praising a new cryptocurrency project, sharing campaign ads and graphics, promoting his media appearances, and other endeavors.
However, he has also been criticizing Harris and the Justice Department after a federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment against Trump for election interference.
Despite attempting to ban the app while in office, Trump has also uploaded material on TikTok, which is rather mild in contrast. He joined the platform in June. The former president criticized inflation, pledged to make the United States “a safe nation again,” and repeated catchphrases like “too big to rig” and “make America great again” in a slew of direct-to-camera videos for his 10.7 million followers.
With 3.2 million followers, his YouTube channel features Trump’s speeches, appearances on Fox News, and attack commercials. On Truth Social, where he has 7.6 million followers, Trump’s postings have received tens of thousands of engagements and a few thousand reposts.
Part of what made Trump’s administration so memorable was his almost continual presence on X. He would often engage in late-night sparring with opponents, disrupting news cycles with abrupt announcements of new policy or staff changes.
However, he was barred from the site, then Twitter, two days after the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, after spending a significant portion of the conclusion of the 2020 election cycle and the months that followed spreading bogus allegations the election had been rigged against him. Citing “the risk of further incitement of violence,” the corporation said that Trump had been “permanently suspended.”
After launching Truth Social in February 2022, Trump withdrew and turned it into his virtual headquarters. The app has had trouble gaining traction after seeing some early growth, and the firm that created it has suffered a decline in share price in recent weeks.
After purchasing the platform in November 2022, Elon Musk restored Trump’s account.
Source: Yahoo News
