Maybe Twitter has hired some former Vox writers? I’m not sure how else to explain what is going on here. It started with this tweet from Donald Trump Jr. in reaction to today’s bad jobs numbers.

Biden isn’t the next FDR he’s the next Jimmy Carter.

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 7, 2021

If you remember the Carter years then it’s not very hard to see what Trump Jr. was saying. It was an era of stagflation, i.e. high inflation, low growth, a recession that led to high unemployment. It was not a good time. And with today’s numbers there is some renewed concern about the possibility inflation could be heating up.

But of course there are plenty of people on the left who are always eager to argue with anything tweeted by someone named Trump. And that led to this curious trending item at Twitter: “People are confused by a Tweet from Donald Trump Jr., saying that President Biden ‘isn’t the next FDR he’s the next Jimmy Carter,’ given that former president Carter is a Nobel Peace Prize winner whose humanitarian record is largely respected.”

This is the way @Twitter works.

And the propagandists in DC are just as bad. pic.twitter.com/KxPh3y0X5i

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) May 7, 2021

No one is actually confused about what Trump Jr. was saying. But for those who claimed they didn’t get it, he clarified.

Anyone who is supposedly "confused," by my below tweet should probably read the awful Biden job report out today, then take a peek at the rising prices of raw materials that we're seeing and then finally google "Jimmy Carter inflation"….Things will make a lot more sense to you! https://t.co/ZJ6142EJIE pic.twitter.com/77bqHP2ubh

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 7, 2021

Again, no one was confused:

95% of people know exactly what it means to compare a president to Jimmy Carter and the other 5% are playing dumb. https://t.co/vordjVIHBw

— Frank J. Fleming (@IMAO_) May 7, 2021

What you did have on Twitter was people who tried their best to change the subject:

Nobel Peace Prizes:

Jimmy Carter – 1

The Trump Family – 0 https://t.co/Yk0SgNnkCH

— Adam Zagoria (@AdamZagoria) May 7, 2021

You mean the former president who won a Nobel Peace Prize, unlike another former president, who was so desperate to get one – but didn't? https://t.co/aIz4v6tUW2

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) May 7, 2021

There was a lot more along these lines.

#YouMightBeARepublicanIf you think being compared to Jimmy Carter is a bad thing. https://t.co/E55w5Rc61N

— CK (@charley_ck14) May 7, 2021

Fair enough. Carter won a Peace Prize and has built a lot of houses for charity in his post-presidency. But, economically speaking, his presidency was not a fun time for most Americans. So why is Twitter spinning for aggrieved Democrats? I’m assuming a person wrote this nonsense. Again, it sounds like a Vox headline, i.e. “Well, akshually…”

What has Twitter become? It obviously wants to play a very active partisan role. pic.twitter.com/yPhkjhfXnS

— Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) May 7, 2021

Or maybe it’s worse than a Vox headline:

Twitter's editorial voice is basically late Soviet if Pravda were run by concern trolls: pic.twitter.com/KHVzFQdoyE

— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) May 7, 2021

And here’s where the social media universe folds in upon itself like a black hole. A Vox writer agrees Trump Jr. had a pretty obvious point and implies Twitter’s description is nonsense.

I can't believe I'm defending Donald Trump Jr., but the point of his tweet is that Carter was *not especially good at being president* — which is also a view a lot of historians of the period hold https://t.co/lAqg6Ng2UA

— Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp) May 7, 2021

When the people at Vox think your “Well, ackshually…” description has gone too far, you’ve definitely gone too far. I’ll give Ben Shapiro the last word.

People are confused by Twitter thinking that Jimmy Carter's presidential legacy is one of joy and success pic.twitter.com/krvtCt71zK

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) May 7, 2021