Dear Parler, You REALLY Don’t Want to be Trump’s Main Mouthpiece

Donald Trump has been excused from social media, maybe forever. While I’m relieved that he’s not currently able to use this particular piece of technology to further his divisive agenda, I’m reminded that so many of my fellow Evangelicals, and other faithful conservatives have recently patronized the up and coming social media platform, “Parler,” citing mainstream social media’s alleged bias towards conservative politics.

Because we all know that anyone who thinks Trump is a bad president, or believes that Coronavirus is a thing, or thinks the election was fair, yada yada, is clearly unamerican. If Twitter thinks that misinformation during a pandemic, or a call to insurrection are bad for America, and curates their platform accordingly, that’s censorhip.

And so Parler has become a haven for Christian Trump supporters, and in the coming weeks will be a platform heavily exploited by the world’s biggest asshole to add further harm to our country, if you can imagine such a thing.

Parler founder and CEO John Matze has taken the high road, following the lead of his constituents, accusing Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and others of the cowardly brand of censorship mentioned above – further evidence that the world is out to get the Christian right. God’s army didn’t need that by the way, having circled the wagons during the Obama era, continuing to trade a religion of peace and justice for a cult of self-protection, and an unthinkably massive friggin’ beehive for conspiracy theories – further evidence for the non-Christian world that the Christian right is b@t s#!t crazy. Maybe even dangerous.

Matze believes that social media should be a place where people can speak freely because the arena of public discourse is the greatest defense against bad ideas. In a recent Forbes interview, he unpacked his vision for the future, and his hope that a free and unfettered mode of discourse might make our world a better place.

“The best thing is for everyone to engage with a bad idea and shut it down through public discourse.”

Take a minute and giggle at that. It’s OK. I said dumber things when I was 27.

I can’t think of one bad idea that Trump has had over the past 4 years that hasn’t found its wings through the kind of public discourse that Matz references above. Sure, if we could somehow get rid of hatred, ignorance, arrogance, and good old fashioned Christian tribalism, as our Bibles tell us to, we might find some respite in hashing things out. But if social media has shown us one thing about conservative Christianity, it’s that we’re suckers for a guy like Trump. We’ve found our man. He can spread it wherever and whenver he wants.

You have to wonder: could he have incited a violent protest at the capitol without access to social media? If Facebook had put him in time-out 4 years ago, would we be nearly as divided as we are now?

Either way, because of the massive Christian exodus to Matz’s platform, because of his ignorance of Trump’s endgame, and because hatred and violence don’t simply work themselves out on their own, Parler will be a fundamental tool in the continued garbage that Trump has planned for my country, and the grease he’ll continue to find from my Christian brothers and sisters.

But hey, if I was 27 years old, sitting on a gold mine, I’m not sure I’d be thinking straight either. And let’s be honest, mainstream social media’s treatment of Trump does seem a bit authoritarian. What right do they have to control what people can and can’t say? Isn’t that censorship?

Not really. Twitter, Facebook, et al. aren’t government services, and I don’t pay for them. They operate on privately owned servers and have every right to do whatever the hell they want with their business. The same holds true at an airport, or a restaurant, or grandma’s house: you can’t simply blurt out whatever you want, especially if it might lead to harm for others. If your mouth becomes a font of division, conspiracy theories, false accusations, and calls to violence, grandma’s going to shut things down pretty fast. It’s her house, she makes the rules, and she cares. She certainly doesn’t want to be a party to evil.

Likewise for platforms like Twitter, concerned, as we all should be for the wellbeing of America. Sadly, because a similar affliction is lacking at Parler, Matz’s gold mine will play an historic role in the violence and stupidity that is sure to mark 2021. And because he promises to go laissez faire on the curation of content, bad ideas will probably take over, leaving the content, among other things, less than interesting.

Despite the Bible’s warnings against unbridled speech and the fires that are sure to follow, America’s Christian right will flock to Parler now more than ever, turning it into a place where peace, hope, love, mercy, and compassion will be quickly supplanted by their polar opposites. I’m not saying that mainstream social media is the place to go for wholesome discourse, but the last place that should be smacking us in the face with hate speech and conspiracy theories is one so heavily populated by Christians.

If John Matze were to institute a few simple adultimatums, things would be much different, but his meteoric ascension would also come to a halt. That’s a trigger that few young, American entrepreneurs have the courage or foresight to pull.

Though I’m shamelessly begging Parler to reconsider, it’s not going to happen. I’ll have to sit and watch as it’s used as a fundamental tool to further exploit the anger, fears and doubts of my Christian brothers and sisters, becoming Trump’s greatest leverage to move the rock of American unity and true patriotism.