About a decade ago, I moved into an apartment in Washington, D.C., that seemed like a bargain. The unit was in good shape and in a nice location. The price was reasonable—slightly below market rate, but not suspiciously low for a fourth-floor walk-up. I did a brief walk-through before signing the lease, just in case, only to cut it short when my editor at the time called to let me know that the Brexit vote was looking closer than expected.
Only after I moved in and tried to fall asleep on the first night did I realize why I was able to rent the place so easily: It was a few blocks down the street from a fire station, and the trucks passed under my window whenever they responded to a call. It took me about a month—a painful, exhausting, bleary-eyed month—to get used to it. Now I can sleep through almost anything.
I think about that fire station whenever I stumble across one of President Donald Trump’s social media posts during his second term. Gone are the days when his 140-character remarks on Twitter would shape the news cycle, in the late 2010s. Now it is easier to tune out the long jeremiads that he cranks out on Truth Social, which also might be the least readable social media website in internet history.
