He was pretty much completely against TikTok awhile back. Now that the House wants to force a sale of TikTok, he suddenly does a 180 and apparently vouches for TikTok while redirecting attention to the misdeeds of Facebook.
Wowowow. Another classic Trump move?
Has TikTok's future now been determined and "secured" such that it isn't a threat anymore? There's been talks of Mnuchin setting up an investor's fund to buy TikTok. We'll see how that plays out.
I see a lot of people online taking the opportunity to say Trump has basically betrayed fellow conservatives and sold out to the Chinese over TikTok to gain funding from the billionaires who own Bytedance.
Could these people be missing the fact that there's a good portion of Trump's support base who uses, could potentially use, or could be converted from current TikTok users?
A lot of TikTok users are pissed right now and they have a genuine point. Out of all the issues the elected officials can agree upon that are absolutely vital to the survival of their nation and the quality of their lives, they choose TikTok. A fun platform where a lot of people get information and have found a voice at.
The political payoff of being for the TikTok ban when it actually happen is probably something like 1 to 9. Meaning you'll gain 1 supporter for every 9 you lose. And most of that one were probably already going to choose Trump anyways.
The play is simple. Take the current anger from the TikTok upheaval and redirect it onto Zuckerberg (next target). The premise is that TikTok is secure from Trump's National Security perspective.
Simple, cunning and effective. All upside for Trump from his tweet.
He is using it to red pill zoomers that love tictok.
Should be good for 5-10 million votes.
In addition to that, it may end up redirecting people to other platforms. X perhaps. It also has put a spotlight, intentionally or unintentionally, (I suspect the former) on Israel.