May 4, 2021

Donald Trump Has a New Website But It’s Bad

Here is the latest media personality to turn to blogging.

donald trump

The Right View/ZUMA Wire

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When then-President Donald Trump permanently lost his tweeting privileges in January, he entered uncertain territory: How would the second president ever to have a Twitter account communicate to the world without a Twitter account? As the weeks went by, Trump talked about creating a new social media platform for himself and his supporters—a place to engage in public discussions and weigh in on the issues of the day, free of the Big Tech censors and oppressive wokeness. What would this new shitposting arcadia look like?

Apparently, it would look a lot like a blog.

On Tuesday, in a story that sounds weirdly like someone trying to describe the internet in 1992, Fox News reported that Trump had “launched a communications platform, which will eventually give him the ability to communicate directly with his followers.” The story continued:

The platform, “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump” appears on www.DonaldJTrump.com/desk. The space will allow Trump to post comments, images, and videos. 

Donald J. Trump dot com backslash desk. Donald J. Trump dot com backslash desk. Donald J. Trump dot com backslash desk. Donald J. Trump dot com backslash desk. This is a website! You’re describing a blog, on a website! Why does this description sound like Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric in that old Today Show video?

This is old technology, man. Anyone can set one of these up! Clicking on the website—again, that’s Donald J. Trump dot com backslash desk—takes you to a landing page that looks sort of like a Twitter homepage, but which consists entirely of little farts of enlightenment from Trump, which up until now he had been sending to reporters using something called “email.” Finally, a place to communicate one’s thoughts, on the internet. It’s not exactly reinventing the spinning wheel—or is it:

The technology appears to be powered by Campaign Nucleus— the ‘digital ecosystem made for efficiently managing political campaigns and organizations,’ created by his former campaign manager, Brad Parscale.

Okay, I take it back: it is not just a blog; it is probably a very expensive blog.

 

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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