Donald Trump's new blog lasted less than a month
Blogging is hard.
By Sara Morrison Jun 2, 2021, 1:55pm EDT
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Trump has waved good-bye to blogging after less than a month.
James Devaney/GC Images
Donald Trump's "communications platform" — also known as a web log or "blog" — will join the Trump Steaks, Trump Airlines, Trump Magazine, Trump Vodka, and Trump 2020 on the list of Trump-branded flops.
"From the Desk of Donald J. Trump," a section of Trump's website, launched last month and featured tweet-style posts from the former president — which he could no longer place on the actual social media sites he used to dominate because he was banned from them. But now, just like his social media accounts, "From the Desk of Donald J. Trump" is no more.
The short-lived site was a letdown from the start. For months, Trump's team said that Trump would launch his own social media platform after being kicked off Twitter and Facebook. But when "From the Desk of Donald J. Trump" went live on May 4, it was not the Twitter competitor some expected, but rather a section of his website that basically functioned as a blog.
Trump posted his thoughts about current events, and fans could then share them on their own social media accounts. There was also a "heart" option with limited functionality. Initially, it didn't work at all, and then it didn't allow people who hearted a post to un-heart it — but there was no way for the viewer to see how many others had also hearted the post.
I hearted one of Trump's blog posts to find out what would happen and I just want everyone to know that once you heart, you can't un-heart.
— Sara Morrison (@SaraMorrison) May 4, 2021
And now, there will be no hearts at all, for the blog has been shuttered and wiped from the internet. The blog page now redirects to a page urging visitors to sign-up for "EXCLUSIVE updates" from Trump via email and phone (it's mandatory to provide both — these are contact information harvesting operations, after all).
Trump adviser Jason Miller confirmed to CNBC that the blog section of the site is indeed gone and won't be back, then hinted on Twitter that Trump will be joining another social media platform — without specifying which one.
Yes, actually, it is. Stay tuned! https://t.co/USKGvVXe2f
— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) June 2, 2021
As for why Trump's virtual desk disappeared, the Washington Post noted that it never really caught on — it certainly didn't get nearly the kind of attention Trump's social media posts did — and that Trump was upset about its low readership and high number of people mocking it. As many bloggers well know and Trump apparently just discovered, blogging is hard and it can take time to find an audience.
As noted above, the Trump team is still insisting that he will either create his own social media platform or join another one (so far, he has resisted using Gab or Parler, either of which would be happy to have him). If that's true, we'll see if that foray lasts longer than his month of blog posts did.