It’s never a good idea to believe everything Donald Trump says, and the same can be said for the people still working for him. His close allies claim the twice impeached former president is happier now that he’s been banned from Twitter for helping incite violence at the US Capitol on January 6.
Now they’re claiming he’s hard at work making a social media network all his own. That comes from Trump spokesperson Jason Miller, who appeared on TV on Sunday to tout a new Trump-centric social platform coming in a few months. As The Daily Beast laid out, Miller gleefully appeared on Fox News to talk about how much social media misses Trump. And so he’ll alleged return with a platform where he’s always the focus.
.@JasonMillerinDC says former President Donald Trump will return to social media in the next two to three months with “his own platform.”
Read more: https://t.co/QHCRGJE8qG pic.twitter.com/bXLngyPH3T
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) March 21, 2021
Miller called it “interesting” that Trump’s time away from Twitter and Facebook has seen his press releases still get traction on the network, though Miller dubiously says they’re getting “more” attention than his tweets ever did. The hyperbole continued as he made the big announcement: Trump is making his own social media site, which is “going to be big” and will attract “tens of millions” of MAGA followers.
“This is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media,” Miller said. “It’s going to completely redefine the game and everybody’s going to be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does.” Miller made it clear in his appearance that the platform will be owned by Trump, and he’s coming back to social media in two or three months.
It’s important to note, though, that none of this adds up for a variety of reasons. There already are conservative-leaning platforms like Gab (and, formerly, Paler) out there, though the echo chamber of those has bored some who abandoned more traditional places like Twitter and Facebook to hang out with their more-riotous friends. Gaining sustained popularity on a social platform happens for a variety of reasons, but joining one just because you’re a fan of a disgraced president might not be as sustainable as many conservatives hope.
We’ll see if Trump’s social platform can get off the ground in just a few months, and if it ever finds any traction. As many have discovered in recent weeks, scaling a website is a tough order and building a platform can take a long time. And there’s another thing: as Parler has seen, finding hosting after you’ve helped incite an attempt to overthrow democracy may be difficult. But perhaps in his recent unemployment, Donald Trump has learned to code.