Trump's Truth Social Bender

Back on November 11, I wrote a blog post titled, "Trump's Truth Social Insanity" in which I described the insanities that cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump regularly posts on Truth Social, his social media network. In that post, I suggested that Trump's Truth Social feed might become a recurring topic. Today is my second contribution to that series. I am motivated to return to this topic due to Trump's overnight activity beginning Monday evening. Within a few hours’ time period, Trump managed to either "truth" or "retruth" at least 160 times. The craziness has to be seen to be believed, but while I have seen some mentions by the corporate media of Trump's slew of posts, none of them have captured the reality of what really occurred. I will attempt to do that today.

On December 1 at 10:55 a.m., Trump "truthed" what was actually an interesting and newsworthy post. He began by expressing satisfaction with the current government of Syria. As is Trump's tendency, he then praised his own contribution to Syria's success. But Trump then went on to write, "It is very important that Israel maintain a strong and true dialogue with Syria, and that nothing takes place that will interfere with Syria's evolution into a prosperous state." Coming just after Israel had launched an attack on a Syrian village that had killed many Syrians, this cannot be seen as anything other than a rebuke of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That a U.S. leader would side with Syria over Israel is extraordinary. However, this fairly remarkable post would soon be drowned out by the tidal wave of nonsense that would follow.

Trump's Truth Social tirade could be said to have started with a post at 3:18 p.m. in which he posted a video of a Somali cultural festival in Minnesota. The video was created by the RAIR Foundation, which is run by anti-Islam activist Amy Mek (full name is Amy Mekelburg). Trump did not include any comments or explanation along with the video. However, a minute later, he reposted the video along with a screenshot of a tweet by Mek in which she warned of alleged dangers that Somali immigrants were presenting to Minnesota. Mek had posted the tweet, which refers to the "The Somali State of Minnesota," on September 21, so it is not clear why Trump suddenly decided to post it. These two posts are emblematic of much that would follow. Trump repeatedly posted items twice for no apparent reason, and much of the material he "truthed" was old.

Then, at 7:09 p.m., Trump posted that Eric Holder "just gave a Speech" in which he called for packing the Supreme Court. Trump included a video which is a segment of a Meidastouch podcast. Holder had, in fact, not given a speech but simply spoke on a podcast and that podcast had been published on November 4. So Trump again seemed to be confused about time. A few minutes later, Trump posted a request for "all America First Patriots" in Tennessee's 7th district to vote in the special election that was held yesterday. Approximately an hour later, Trump posted about Senator Mark Kelly and complaining that Kelly and others had called for disobeying the "President of the United States!"

Again almost an hour passed, and Trump posted to compliment Jim Hanson on his appearance on Jesse Watters' Fox News program. This perhaps provides some insight as to how Trump was spending his evening. To this point, the Truth Social posts had not really been anything out of the ordinary for Trump and, had he stopped at this point, it would have been basically a run-of-the-mill evening. However, Trump then went on a wild spree of “retruthing."

The "retruths," like Trump's apparent television viewing habits, give an interesting, if scary, insight into Trump's information sources. He seems to live in a bubble of conspiracy theories, racism, and misinformation. Many of his "retruths" are from marginal accounts that have limited followings. Quite a few are foreign. For instance, Trump posted a TikTok video that attacked Representative Ilhan Omar created by a user named "TikTokgirlfriends019". That account has just over 3,000 followers and is set to private. How does Trump even find this stuff? Similarly, Trump posted a tweet by a user simply named "John" who has 4,500 followers that contained a video that made a number of false allegations about Omar. Trump followed that with a second video posted by "John" that has additional misinformation about Omar. Not finished there, Trump posted a tweet by a user named "A Cathleen" who was retweeting "John" and calling Omar a terrorist. Trump followed this by truthing a TikTok video from an account named "@3108344671872" that describes itself as "Musk.Fan" and contained a video of Elon Musk making his own false allegations about Omar. Trump appeared to have a particular obsession with Omar throughout the evening, and she featured prominently in his feed. I had to stop counting the number of anti-Omar posts, several of which were from small and/or foreign accounts. But one last example was a post by Trump of a tweet by a user named "Truth Teller" that asked why Omar is not in jail. Truth Teller is based in South Asia.

Trump, as he has in the past, "retruthed" a post from the "FAN TRUMP ARMY," an account that we now know is based in India. Ironically, the post was about people being paid to advocate political views. Trump also posted a tweet from an account simply named "GABRIEL" that has 200,000 followers and is based in South Asia. The post contained a video of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth bragging about killing the occupants of boats that are alleged to be engaged in drug smuggling. Trump also posted a tweet by a user "Sami Nathaniel" that had a video of world-class hater Stephen Miller making anti-immigration statements. The account is based in South Asia. In fact, Trump posted multiple tweets from this user. Hilariously, Trump posted a tweet from an account named "Barron Trump" that is actually based in Eastern Europe. In another example, Trump posted a tweet from an X account named "Defender of the Republic" in which the poster said that she had received a strike on TikTok for posting the video that was included in her tweet. The video claimed that the U.S. is in the midst of a "color revolution" which is a "communist, globalist" plot. This allegation is straight out of Russia's playbook and is used by Russia to discredit pro-democracy movements in Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Yugoslavia. Presumably, Trump now opposes pro-democracy movements both in Europe and the United States.

Trump was big on conspiracy theories during his rampage of posts. In addition to the above allegation that pro-democracy movements in the U.S. are part of a communist and globalist conspiracy, Trump posted an allegation that former President Barack Obama was involved in "seditious conspiracy" and would be criminally prosecuted. He retruthed allegations about immigrants and social security numbers that involve perfectly legal activities. He posted a claim that Elon Musk had single-handedly saved the 2024 election by rendering computers in Serbia inoperable so that they could not be used to steal the election for Kamala Harris. He reposted a long tweet about former CIA Director John Brennan. Brennan is a favorite target among MAGA conspiracy theorists, and this post contained a long list of allegations about Brennan, including the claim that Brennan has a "shady communist background" and has openly claimed to be a Muslim (he hasn't). Trump posted a claim that Nancy Pelosi had planned the January 6 insurrection two years before it occurred. Trump posted an allegation by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones that former First Lady Michelle Obama used former President Joe Biden's autopen to pardon key individuals. Jones attributed the claim to Patrick Byrne, the founder of Overstock.com, who has become a right-wing conspiracy theorist.

Again, Trump frequently relied on foreign sources for conspiracy theory claims. For instance, he posted a tweet from a X user named "Svetlana Lokhova" who made a complex allegation about former FBI Director James Comey. The account is based in "East Asia and Pacific," and the user describes herself as a "British Historian" who is "exposing the grand conspiracy against Pres. Trump." Trump posted a long list of allegations attributed to Lara Logan that was posted by an X user named "Camus" who is based in Europe. Camus would have us believe that just about everything is a conspiracy, though to what end is not clear. Trump posted a tweet from a user named "Sebastian" who, it turns out, is based in South Asia, in which Sebastian criticized an American judge. The "American First" president sure does seem to rely on a lot of non-Americans when it come to his social media postings.

A frequent theme of my blog posts has been Trump's clear cognitive decline. The fact that he would spend several hours of his evening making 160 posts on Truth Social should be clear evidence that he is not mentally well. Moreover, the content of his posts suggests some neurological deficiencies. I mentioned above that he reposted an account that was named after his son but is actually based abroad. Obviously, it is not possible to know whether Trump wrongly believed that to be Barron's account, but it is odd nevertheless. In another example, Trump posted a tweet containing a TikTok video claiming that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro had surrendered to Trump and was turning state evidence that would implicate the Biden administration. Clearly, Maduro has not surrendered, a fact of which one would think Trump would be aware. Does Trump not know that Maduro has not surrendered?

Trump ended his posting spree with a truth at 5:48 a.m. simply saying, "TRUTH SOCIAL IS THE BEST! There is nothing even close!!!" This is true in one sense. If you want to see the state of Trump's muddled brain, nothing comes close to Truth Social. If you were interviewing someone for a job and you became aware that they had a social media feed that remotely resembled Trump's, you would immediately drop them from consideration. If an elderly relative had such an account, you would ensure that they did not have access to car keys or sharp objects. Every political reporter has access to Trump's Truth Social feed and can see for themselves how unbalanced he is. Yet, the press continues to treat him as a serious, sane individual. Biden may have hidden his cognitive decline. Trump's is wide out in the open. It deserves to get attention.