Trump's Blog Rollout Met With Mostly Crickets

Well, folks, it turns out former President of the United States Donald Trump has more in common with your annoying college roommate circa 2008 than meets the eye. No, I'm not talking about his propensity for reportedly getting only 4-5 hours of sleep each night and allegedly drinking an absurd amount of Diet Coke, I'm talking about his newfound passion for certifiably mediocre blogging. 

Almost four months after the former POTUS was booted from platforms including Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube in the aftermath of the Capitol insurrection on January 6, it seems the President has found a new way to share his musings with the world after managing to piss off some of social media's biggest players  -- launching his own blog entitled “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump." With supporters unable to directly interact with 45's musings aside from sharing them to major social media sites, Trump's blog features posts covering all of the political figure's favorite topics. From spewing baseless allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election, to calling disgraced Kentucky Derby-winning horse Medina Spirit “a junky,” and even dunking on “warmonger” Rep. Liz Cheney (#familyvalues?) the site stays true to the former President's terrifyingly chaotic voice, however, his rants just aren't hitting the same as his late-night tweets, data seems to suggest.

Unlike 45's official Twitter account where he garnered hundreds of thousands of likes on several of his posts, with his tweet announcing he and former First Lady of the United States Melania Trump tested positive for Covid-19 back in October racking up more than 1.9 million likes, the highest amount during his tenure in office according to Newsweek, data experts say his new blog just doesn't have the same pull. 

“Trump’s new blog has attracted a little over 212,000 engagements, defined as backlinks and social interactions — including likes, shares and comments — received across Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Reddit,” NBC News reported, citing engagement figures compiled by social media analytics group, BuzzSumo. “Before the ban, a single Trump tweet was typically liked and retweeted hundreds of thousands of times.”

While the outlet notes that these numbers provide " … a hint that while Trump remains a political force, his online footprint is still dependent on returning to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube,” the feasibility of Donnie getting his platform back, which boasted roughly 88 million followers on Twitter alone, is fairly uncertain. Although Florida recently passed a highly convoluted, loophole-filled law subjecting social media outlets to fines of $250,000 per day for banning state politicians, Facebook's oversight board recently upheld its decision to boot him from their platform, with a Twitter spokesperson telling Politico that “nothing has changed” regarding their decision to ban the ex-POTUS in late March.

Furthermore, the blog recently made headlines after a Twitter account seemingly reposting items shared on the new platform was suspended. With a bio reading “posts copied from Save America on behalf of the 45th POTUS; Originally composed via DonaldJTrump/Desk," alongside a note clarifying that the account was definitely not run by Trump, Jason Miller, a spokesperson for the former President says the account was not created by or with the permission of anyone in the leader's camp. 

So folks, take it from Donnie – don't get banned from Twitter, unless you want a one-way ticket back to the bad blogging culture from 2009. 

For more internet nonsense, follow Carly on Instagram @HuntressThompson_ on TikTok as @HuntressThompson_, and on Twitter @TennesAnyone.