Of all the pretenders to the Twitter throne none seems to have the potential of GETTR. Parlor has come and gone and others haven’t made the recent splash of GETTR. I joined yesterday.
On cursory analysis it seems to be a sharp platform. Founded and run by Trump ace Jason Miller, the site claims to be “a marketplace of ideas”. It actually does seem institutionally unbiased with, of course given Miller’s background, a very pro-Trump fan base. Which is fine, as the former president is the big honcho in the Republican Party for now.
But one troubling aspect of the site was Miller’s welcoming to the fold of Sidney Powell. She is the shyster and 2020 election conspiracy lunatic who claimed because of her efforts Joe Biden would never be inaugurated. Well, he was and with any intelligent or sane person that would have been the end of Powell’s credibility. Not to mention that her brand of emotional populism is the antithesis of true conservatism.
However, the populist menace is filled with lots of gullible, idiotic, and disturbed knuckle draggers and thus Miller, probably hedging his bets with an open tent policy, trumpeted her GETTR association. She was referred to by others on the site as “a patriot”.
Which is strange, as many associate that term with the Founders. The Founders were not populists in the slightest. They were men of good breeding, money, position, and learning. They were typical Englishmen of The Enlightenment and as such were meritocratic elitists. They would have little in common with the slobbering mob of January 6th and would see the rest of the populist clique as the rabble that they are.
So there’s that extant populist danger with GETTR or any de facto Republican social media platform. It cannot be a viable marketplace of adult ideas if it promotes charlatans like Sidney Powell and like-minded illogical, non-empirical, and emotionalist populist riff raff.
Another problem is the larger issue of the message ghetto. It can be frustrating to be a conservative active on social media. When it comes to Twitter even more so. Many conservatives have been kicked off that platform for expressing views that offend left wing orthodoxy. I have myself been booted because I said a liberal and incompetent federal judge had the judicial acumen of a toilet brush.
At least that’s why I think I was given the heave ho. They never tell you specifically why you were axed. But we on the Right must be careful not to segregate ourselves into message ghettos that act as echo chambers of our own views. We must also engage with the popular culture and fight the good fight.
Yes, we’re outnumbered. Which just makes it more fun. Our intellectual guns are bigger and more accurate. Another advantage to us. So while hopefully much devoid of the populist plague, GETTR is a seemingly fine place to post and peruse. We must remember though, the opposition is out there on places like Twitter. Let’s afford them no intellectually safe space.