Former President Donald Trump has been invited back to Twitter by the platform’s new CEO, Elon Musk, but has thus far declined to return. Instead he’s spending his time on his own social media site, Truth Social, where he has posted some truly strange things in the last several months.
Mr Trump regularly "re-truths" posts that sing his praises, but one of his most recent posts includes an edited video featuring a bizarre mashup of scenes from movies in which characters watch in rapturous glee as the former president gives speeches and brags about himself.
As the video rolls, scenes from films including Napoleon Dynamite, Forrest Gump, Gremlins, Kill Bill, Fargo, Ed Wood and more play out, showing characters gathering to watch Mr Trump boast about himself during campaign speeches and more "candid" public meet-and-greets.
One of those meet-and-greets features rapper Kanye West wearing a red MAGA hat and saying "I love this guy" as he shakes the former president’s hand. Mr West has recently taken a public beating for making numerous anti-Semitic comments and for wearing a "White Lives Matter" shirt alongside right-wing provocateur Candace Owens.
The footage includes shots of celebrities that have been publicly critical of the former president, including Robert De Niro — who has called Mr Trump "totally nuts" and "blatantly stupid" among other things — and Elliot Page prior to his transition. Mr Page previously said Mr Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence spent their careers "trying to cause suffering."
Uma Thurman, the star of Kill Bill, has played a character in a Broadway play that she claimed couldn’t bring themselves to say Mr Trump’s name, and Francis McDormand, who played the star midwestern police officer in Fargo, marched to protest the former president’s inauguration in 2017. Tom Hanks, the star of Forrest Gump, criticised Mr Trump for making "Pocahontas jokes" to Navajo code talkers and starred in The Post, which was seen at the time as director Stephen Spielberg’s rebuke of the former president’s attacks on the press.
The strange video also includes a clip from "They Live," starring WWE legend "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, which was a film directed by John Carpenter and was a direct — and unsubtle — criticism of Ronald Reagan’s America and capitalism.
To make things even weirder, the entire video is set to the saccharine Lee Greenwood song "God Bless the USA," which saw a resurgence in popularity after 9/11 and is viewed by some as a sincerely patriotic tune and others as a nauseating appeal to nationalistic sentiment. The song is frequently played at Trump events.
The video has no clear message beyond praising Mr Trump, which is likely exactly why he shared it on Truth Social.
