Bess Levin this morning at Vanity Fair: "'What Facebook, Twitter, and Google have done is a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our Country,' the living embodiment of a disgrace and embarrassment to the United States wrote/screamed in a statement. 'Free Speech has been taken away from the President of the United States because the Radical Left Lunatics are afraid of the truth, but the truth will come out anyway, bigger and stronger than ever before. The People of our Country will not stand for it! These corrupt social media companies must pay a political price, and must never again be allowed to destroy and decimate our Electoral Process.'"
Why is Señor Trumpanzee so distraught over the extension of his Facebook ban? Follow the money... as Nick Corasaniti and Shane Goldmacher did this morning. They wrote that Facebook's decision-- another 6 months of suspension-- "could have significant consequences for his political operation as he tries to remain the leader of the Republican Party, thwarting his ability to amplify his message to tens of millions of followers and hampering his fund-raising ability."
In 2020, the Trump MAGA Committee spent $94,619,326 on Facebook ads and Donald J. Trump for President spent another $44,135,293 on that same ad platform. The two committees spent another 129,718,800 on Google ads-- so a total of $268,473,419 trying to warp the minds and brainwash the below-average-IQ users of Facebook and Google. (The Trump-controled RNC spent another $21 million and change on the two platforms, most of which went towards pushing Trump's failed reelection efforts.)
Corasaniti and Goldmacher contend that now that Trumpanzee is officially a social media pariah, "his platform for reaching Americans has diminished greatly without access to big social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, which has permanently [maybe Twitter but Facebook... not really] suspended the former president. Some Trump aides think that the absence of Facebook, which was crucial to his success in 2016, will hinder him if he decides to run again in 2024, which he has told several advisers is his plan... The decision by Facebook does not immediately hamper Mr. Trump’s fund-raising ability-- he still maintains control of a large number of supporter email addresses and phone numbers. But fund-raising lists must be continually refreshed, and Facebook has proved a crucial place for Mr. Trump to do so... But perhaps most immediately, the ban against running any political ads hampers one of Mr. Trump’s most current prized roles: Republican primary kingmaker. 'He’s really committed to settling scores and making sure his allies get boosted,' Mr. Wilson said. 'They won’t have access to Facebook to help the candidates he wants to support in the primaries in 2022.'"
This morning, Karen Swisher reported that Trump could be back on Facebook spewing his incendiary lies in 6 months. Meanwhile be has a new blog (FromTheDeskOfDonaldJTrump.com), which, she reported, "opens up a can of worms for a Republican Party that is already braced for-- and embroiled in-- infighting as it charts a path for 2022 and 2024. She interviewed longtime GOP pollster (and Kevin McCarthy roomie) Frank Luntz, who, as we saw a few days ago, is not exactly a hero of the Trumpist right.
Luntz advocates rejecting Trump himself and he worries that Trump's campaign to undermine faith in elections could backfire on the Republican party. "This could cost the Republicans, the majority in the House in 2022. What Donald Trump is saying is actually telling people it’s not worth it to vote. Donald Trump single-handedly may cause people not to vote. And he may be the greatest tool in the Democrats’ arsenal to keep control of the House and Senate in 2022."
Luntz also notes that in 2024, Trump could mean absolute disaster for the GOP. "If Donald Trump runs for president as a Republican, he’s the odds-on favorite to win the nomination. He could never win a general election, but I can’t imagine losing a Republican primary. That’s how significant he is within the GOP. And yet he’s lost all of those crossover voters that would deny him the chance to win in a general election... I would bet on him to be the nominee and I would bet on him losing to whatever Democratic nominee there was."