Without Twitter or Facebook to repeat his lies, disgraced and defeated Donald Trump thought blogging would get his delusions out to his dwindling list of supporters to raise money and bring an outcry from misinformed for a run for the presidency in 2024.
His advisers claimed Trump’s blog was “a beacon of freedom .”
It was a bust that didn’t last even a month. The blog shut down on its 29th day of irrelevance.
Advisers admitted Wednesday that the “beacon of freedom” was “put out of its misery.”
Writes Drew Herbert and Josh Dewey:
Former president Donald Trump’s blog, celebrated by advisers as a “beacon of freedom” that would keep him relevant in an online world he once dominated, is dead. It was 29 days old.
Upset by reports from The Washington Post and other outlets highlighting its measly readership and concerns that it could detract from a social media platform he wants to launch later this year, Trump ordered his team Tuesday to put the blog out of its misery, advisers said.
On its last day, the site received just 1,500 shares or comments on Facebook and Twitter — a staggering drop for someone whose every tweet once garnered hundreds of thousands of reactions.
For the megalomaniac who refuses to lose at anything, Trump’s failure as a blogger was just the latest loss by a former disgraced president who is under investigation by multiple grand juries for criminal behavior that includes financial fraud, obstruction of justice, and other felonies.
His money-losing Trump International Hotel on Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue is for sale as creditors close in, demanding huge “balloon payments” he cannot afford. His “golf resorts” are hemorrhaging money and his hotels report less than 50 percent occupancy. Some are closed. Others may follow. Another bankruptcy may be part of Trump’s future of failures.
Trump is a has-been, a deserved legacy for a liar, con man, thief, and criminal.
Writes columnist Paul Waldman:
Despite all the contempt Republican politicians heap on the media and all their attempts to create alternative sources of information, they still need those media. Desperately.
But we in the MSM no longer need Trump, at least not in the way we used to. We’re sort of like the alcoholics who reject the 12-step method’s insistence on abstinence to become moderate drinkers. We don’t need our hit of Trump every day but, from time to time, we can partake a bit and be fine (by discussing Trump, I’m doing it right now).
That’s why it was so momentous when Twitter booted Trump off its service — much more so than when Facebook did the same, even though Facebook has many more users. Twitter is where journalists congregate, communicate with one another, monitor the daily stream of news and determine what’s important.
Trump could speak to his supporters there, but much more important, that was where he could speak to journalists, who would then amplify his thoughts and words to their own audiences. It made him the center of a conversation that crossed ideological lines: Whoever you were and whatever your perspective on politics, you knew what he was thinking.
And now you don’t, at least not in a day-by-day way. While some of Trump’s superfans may have been checking his blog regularly, the things that happened there seldom penetrated into the wider political discussion. Our national political debates are proceeding along just fine without him.
Waldman notes Trump became a public figure “desperate to make his name in Manhattan, where all the big shots were.”
“He forced his way in with brashness and lies, becoming a ubiquitous presence even if he never got the acceptance he craved,” Waldman writes. “Yet, today, he can’t even set foot in New York, despite the fact that a few buildings there still bear his name.
People still talk about him there and he retains some influence, but it’s not really his place anymore. And it must be killing him.”
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bully, liar, deviate, and thug.
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