In the wake of the January 6th riots, Twitter, Facebook, and many other apps took the decisive measure of banning President Trump from their platforms, on account of his supposed involvement. Many wondered if the bannings would silence the social media-savvy President, but Trump had a different plan: if they don’t let you in, do it yourself. The February 2022 launch of Truth Social, a Trump-founded social media platform that gave the President a way to continue engaging cyberspace, made headlines as voters debated whether the alternative platform would succeed or not. 

(Chris Delmas, Getty Images)

Four years later, the President continues to post frequently - with some statistics claiming he posts as frequently as 17 posts a day, on average. On Truth, Trump is keenly aware he’s speaking to his base: an overwhelming number of Republicans use the app, with 61 percent of Republicans claiming they were interested in using it compared to 23 percent of Democrats. Critics have derided Truth Social as an echo chamber, merely a platform for Trump to only engage with his base and ignore the realities of the outside world. Yet Trump is far from the first President to sequester his fans. It seems, in founding Truth Social_, Trump harkens back to a separate time in the development of the Republic - one where its media environment was openly run not by independent journalists but by the politicians themselves.

It may run counterintuitive to conventional ideas of journalism, but some of the earliest newspapers of the Republic had an explicitly political purpose. Newspapers such as Thomas Jefferson’s National Intelligencer openly filtered reporting through a partisan perspective. This was done at the behest of the paper’s founders, who, when not the candidate themselves, were often close associates to the candidate and political party. As a counterpart in Washington to the two Federalist papers being published, the Intelligencer quickly became news synonymous with the voice of the Republicans and soon-to-be President.

 Jefferson himself was a longtime believer in the power of the press, calling it the engine by which America could be freed from Federalism. He was frequently in contact with publisher Samuel Smith and often encouraged his political allies to write for the paper, likely authoring several anonymous essays himself. These essays were read by practically every Republican - a Federalist newspaper angrily remarked that, in 1800, newspapers had circulated all throughout the country, so that a “perfect union of opinion was established.” Clearly, Jefferson’s manipulation of the media helped cement a Republican base to challenge the Federalists currently in power. 

Trump uses Truth Social in a similar manner to how Jefferson used the Intelligencer. Both Trump and Jefferson took advantage of their audience already being primed for their message, using their platform to sculpt their own base. To Jefferson, this meant stoking fears of Federalist overreach transforming the government into monarchy. To Trump, it meant rebuilding the GOP in his image through endorsements of approved candidates. Interestingly, both used it to make claims about election security if they lost. By using these message boards to rally their base, both candidates established homogeneity of opinion and encouraged turnout within their own party. 

Even after Trump’s return to Twitter in late 2022, Truth Social continues to be his first choice for posting, recently announcing he is selling private passes to early access to data on the platform - a move some have accused of enabling insider trading. Through the universal messaging power of Truth Social, however, Trump is able to do far more - he can follow the path laid by Jefferson of using mass media to consolidate and unify voter opinion.