If You Give a Pig a Twitter Account

If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to ask for a glass of milk. And if you give a pig a Twitter account, he's going to incite an insurrection of the U.S. Capitol.

The pig in question is, of course, Donald Trump. So I'm not quite calling the man a farm animal (althoughhh...I digress). But I am comparing him to Animal Farm's very own Squealer the pig.

Squealer and Trump are both great examples of figures corrupted by power and spreading lies to maintain that power. As pronounced by Lord Acton in 1887, "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." This quote inspired George Orwell in writing Animal Farm, and the notion appears as a theme throughout the novella.

The pigs' power over the farm starts with them as equals to the other animals, only taking the reins due to their higher intelligence. However, this quickly goes south, as pigs Napoleon and Squealer, in particular, begin to alter the written commandments and such to increase their control over the animals and their own comfort of living. In the end, this hunger for power led the pigs to hypocrisy and the other animals to worsened lives of overworking and starvation.

Like countless others across time, it is clear that power corrupted the pigs. And Squealer played an essential role in the capture of such power.

Throughout the novella, Napoleon makes many changes and breaks many promises, often telling lies to not look like the bad guy. The animals are often weary of such lies at first, but after hearing Squealer speak and explain, they are quickly persuaded. He uses persuasive techniques, speaking with emotion as well as logic to convince the animals to side with Napoleon.

Their rhetoric is effective in gaining almost blind followers who will trust anything said by Napoleon (and, thus, Squealer as his spokesperson). Boxer the horse exemplifies such an individual so naively taken by his leader, going to the extent of adopting the personal slogan of "Napoleon is always right." He is one of the animals more vulnerable to falling into this trap due to his lack of education—he doesn't know any better than to trust and believe what he's told.

What Squealer is to animals like Boxer, Trump is to people like those who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The insurrectionists were fueled by the lie that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" from Trump. Surrounding this was much more exaggerated and false rhetoric spread by Trump, his supporters, and other public figures—both before and after the insurrection.

This notion of election fraud not only encouraged thousands of Trump supporters to unlawfully show up at the Capitol but it also helped Trump raise hundreds of millions of dollars for a made up "Election Defense Fund." This ploy for money on top of everything else emphasizes how corrupt and power hungry Trump is.

Furthermore, Trump has no issue rallying his supporters, using Twitter as a platform to spread his word. Just like Squealer, Trump convinces his supporters of lies and turns them against a common enemy, often as a scapegoat. He is very persuasive, especially to less educated populations (similar to that of Boxer), building himself a mass of blind followers. It is this devotion to supporting Trump that led those involved in the insurrection to follow through on such an act in spite of how illegal it is—they believe Trump over anyone or anything else.

In situations like the ones discussed, from Animal Farm to contemporary American politics, some of the most noble individuals are those who speak out against such lies and damaging rhetoric. Regarding the novella, the animals that express some sort of disagreement are either quickly persuaded the other way or "taken care of" (i.e. banished or murdered).

Benjamin the donkey is best suited to speak out against the pigs because of his intelligence and ability to read—he's the one who can see the truth like the changes made to the commandments. However, he refuses this position, opting for the most part to submissively watch the pigs unfairly rule the farm. Unfortunately, many people in the world are like this, since being a bystander is an easy default when one wishes to protect themselves from harm. We can only hope that with increased education and easier access to information, among other variables, we will feel more inclined to speak out against harmful lies.