Former Republican President Donald Trump drew criticism over the weekend for seemingly advocating a second Civil War on his Truth Social platform. On Saturday Trump "retruthed" a post he liked from a random account—something he often did on Twitter.
Twitter posts are colloquially referred to as tweets and reposting something from another user a retweet. So for Trump's copycat platform, posts are called "truths"—without a dash of irony or self-awareness—and reposting is a "retruth."
Fox Nation host Lara Logan shared—without caption—a screenshot of a Twitter post by El Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele, which was then quote truthed by user MAGA King Thanos with added caption:
"Civil war."
Trump then retruthed that post.
Bukele's original post on Twitter is from March—featuring a widely criticized Bloomberg opinion piece about inflation—to take a jab at the USA and the Biden administration.
The meaning of any of the posts, truths and retruths of Bukele's tweet isn't entirely clear.
The post looked like this on Truth Social.
Donald J. Trump/Truth Social
The Truth Social posts—with added annotations—were then shared on Twitter by several users, including conservative Republican and vocal Trump critic George Conway.
Conway wrote:
"Nothing to see here. Just a former president of the United States sharing a social media post advocating or predicting civil war in the United States. No biggie."
To prove the "retruths" authenticity, Conway added a video reel of Trump's Truth Social account scroll.
Conway also discussed the post with CNN's Jim Acosta.
Conway said GOP leadership weren't speaking out against Trump's divisive rhetoric because:
"[T]hey're terrified of him."
He added:
"They're also terrified of a Republican base that's become increasingly radicalized. That actually does believe that people who politically disagree with them are a threat to the nation and therefore violence could be necessary to fight them off, and that's what we saw in this social media post."
"The suggestion is that somehow we are headed towards civil war or there should be civil war, or something to that effect, and for a former President of the United States and leading contender for the 2024 Republican nomination to even be talking about that and suggesting that is absolutely appalling."
Conway wasn't the only member of the GOP bothered by Trump's post.
Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois tweeted:
"Any of my fellow Republicans wanna speak out now?"
"Or are we just wanting to get through 'just one more election first…'?"
Conway and Kinzinger may have felt out on a limb amongst GOP leadership, but they weren't alone in their concern online.
The first Civil War was an armed insurrection against the United States over slavery's continuation.
There is some irony in the fact the January 6, 2021 insurrection and Trump’s role in it lead to his permanent ban on Twitter and his second impeachment.
This is not the first time MAGA voices either called for or warned against a civil war.
It probably won't be the last.
