April 24, 2021

After Years of Lording Over an Uncontrolled Spigot of Bad Tweets, Trump Now Claims Twitter Is “Really Boring”

The time for the “much more elegant” press release has arrived.

The Right View/ZUMA

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Remember the Twitter-obsessed former president Donald Trump? The one who, after years of tormenting the American public with his uncontrolled spigot of erratic, racist, lying tweets, was finally kicked off the platform following the January 6 Capitol insurrection? Well, he’s changed. Now he wants you to believe that he finds Twitter “very, very boring.” Speaking to his favorite media megaphone Sean Hannity Friday on Fox News, Trump instead lavished praise on the various press releases he’s been forced to issue as an alternative, referring to them as a “much more elegant” form of communication.

What’s more, the former president touted himself as some kind of a trailblazer, falsely claiming that droves have been fleeing the social media platform since his unceremonious exit. While it’s true that other sites, such as Parler, have gained popularity, there isn’t any evidence to support Trump’s assertion. From Mr. Sophistication himself:

“Every time I do a release, it’s all over the place. It’s better than Twitter, much more elegant than Twitter. And Twitter now is very boring. A lot of people are leaving Twitter. Twitter has become very, very boring. When I started with Twitter years ago, it was like a failed thing, concept, media platform, fail. It was failed. And it became exciting. And I think I had a lot to do with it, to be honest with you, it became exciting. And now it’s boring. It’s no good anymore. The people are telling me.”

The remarks come as Facebook is about to decide whether to lift its ban on Trump following his incitement of January’s insurrection. My colleague Pema Levy reported on the major decision earlier this month:

In the coming weeks, Facebook’s new Oversight Board will decide whether to restore Trump to the platform. But Facebook has also asked the board to advise it on a possibly thornier issue: What should it do about other political leaders? Should their posting privileges continue even if they lie, stoke violence, or push other harms? By tasking the board with this question, Trump has been set up as a test case that will establish a precedent the company could apply across the globe.

Whatever happens, you can expect more whining and extravagant self-justification from our former president.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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