How Trump triumphed with Tech—Part 2, 2024

I had written earlier on how Trump won with Tech in 2015. So, what went wrong in 2019-20? For one, he was no longer the challenger and dark house taking on the establishment, but the ruling President. The biggest reason was probably because of Covid, which had totally demoralized the world. By 2020-end when the elections took place there was a great deal of anti-incumbency and despair against all the rulers of the world. At such times leaders instead of inspiring memes became the butt of jokes instead.

In the first part I had mentioned how king maker Drudge Report backed him with great success. For the re-election, Drudge totally went after Trump and backed Biden. Trump’s campaign chief of 2015-16, Steve Bannon, was no longer with him. All this together may have contributed to his loss.

An absolute nadir

If Trump thought that losing the 2020 elections was his low point, he had no idea of what was to follow. On January 6 we had the storming of the US Capitol building and the mainstream media laid the entire blame on Trump and went hard after him. There was an investigation which carried on and on. Multiple social media sites banned his account, an unprecedented event that seemed to silence him forever. Then came the raids, arrests, trials and felony counts. At one stage it all seemed over for him. The average Democrat was convinced that Trump would be jailed. Both his business and political life seemed destined to end for good.

The X Factor

Out of all the media and social media entities, something that punched way above its weight was Twitter. Despite having much lesser users and revenue compared to its rivals, it set the global political discourse. Without it you were finished. Remember, Trump was banned on Twitter, so his chances were bleak.

In walked Elon Musk and he took over Twitter. The first thing he did was veer Twitter to a centrist position rather than the far-Left world that it was in. The founders of Twitter and most of the senior management were Democrats and it showed in the treatment of users. Conservatives regularly complained of them being shadow banned and having their trends downgraded. The large number of Rightists thrown off the platform also attested to the bias.

The tide turned and Trump supporters had a say on the platform (now X) and they were quite vocal, pushing forward their arguments and taking on the Democratic-Liberal-Progressive lobby. The mainstream media again found themselves powerless on this medium and it seemed a repeat of 2015-16. X grew stronger that Twitter in terms of user count and engagement.

If that wasn’t enough, Musk, who had been a Democrat till now, decided to back the Republicans and Trump. That was a big boost. Along with Robert F Kennedy Jr and Tulsi Gabbard, it seemed the best of the Democratic party wanted to be with Trump. You can’t get a better endorsement than that. So many people, including his VP pick JD Vance, had been against him in 2015 and they came to his side. That speaks volumes to the electorate which is tired of polarization and looking for unity.

Social Media is “lit” again

This time in the last odd year before the polls, the social media scene went great for Trump. He was back as a challenger against the establishment, something which he relished. There was no shortage of viral moments and memes in this campaign. When Trump claimed that immigrants were eating cats and dogs, the Democrats went ballistic. The media thought that they had a chance to pin him down. Soon AI generated images of Trump with cats and dogs flooded the Internet showing him in good light. As it is, cats rule the Internet.

When Peanut the squirrel and Fred the racoon were killed by (Democrat-ruled) authorities, everyone berserk again. AI generated images of the two animals with Trump flooded the sites. When Kamala Harris claimed to have worked at McDonalds, Trump put on an apron and went to work there. X simply loved it. When President Joe Biden called Trump supporters garbage, Trump rode a garbage van. Both mainstream and social media were forced to cover it.

The biggest viral moment of it all was when there was an assassination attempt on Trump. While newspapers and news channels tried to downplay it, X went all out backing Trump. If 2015-16 had Kek and Pepe, then 2024 had no shortage of content to put Trump in good light. As I wrote before, if the first time around there was a contrast between Trump and Hillary, this time it was even greater with Kamala. No matter what Kamala did, she trended negatively. No matter what Trump did, he trended positively. 

The podcast world

If the mainstream media leaned firmly left and social media was superficial and transitory, then there is one world that has proved to be deep and influential. That’s the podcast world. Podcaster have taken over the world of discourse. They are lengthy and discuss every point of view. Thanks to the Liberals initially snubbing this medium, it automatically became a fiery debate ground for the Right. Trump agreed to the Joe Rogan podcast, which went 3 hours plus got more than a 100 million views while Kamala refused it and went to a few lesser-known podcasts. Trump went on the Theo Von show, Flagrant (with comedian Andrew Schulz, Indian American Akaash Singh etc) and others. When Rogan endorsed Trump for President, it was a big thing. Trump’s VP pick and Musk went on the Joe Rogan podcast soon after Trump.

All the stars aligned for Trump again this time as he won the Electoral College more convincingly along with the popular vote. The Republicans won the Senate and the House.

It is difficult to imagine Trump winning both times without the help of social media, memes and podcasts. Had there been just the mainstream media, celebrity endorsements and propaganda from colleges, then Trump wouldn’t even have won the Republican nomination the first time around, let alone two presidencies!