Well, Trump’s people would tell you, he has the effervescence of Donald Trump! When Trump’s Twitter account was revoked in January, he had almost 90 million followers. Surely, some of those will follow him to a new social media site, but even millions following one guy won’t be enough to make the site viable. If you want to follow one guy, signing up for his email service is enough. But people open social media accounts to reach whole, expanding networks of people with varied interests. A thriving social media site allows you to itch all the niches of your personality. You might come for politics but also be looking for other people who share your interest in wine or movies or macramé or the Cistercians. A social media site based primarily on an allegiance to the monoculture represented by Donald Trump and his political positions would soon become pretty boring for even the dead-endingest of Trump dead-enders. If too identified with Trump, the new platform would become an anti-social media site and repulse people. If not identified enough with Trump, the new platform would cease to have any reason to exist. So, why bother?

One of the reasons Trump’s social media presence became essential reading was that as president his every utterance and burp made news. If he tweeted a promise to incinerate some foreign foe, everybody wanted to be there to hear it first-hand, especially liberals who despised and feared him. But reduced now to a geriatric golf cheat whose only true power comes from political fundraising and supporting candidates who will primary his Republican enemies, Trump’s clipped messages have lost their former valency and there’s nothing he can do, short of regaining the presidency, to winning his old network back. Trump’s political potency depends on convening an audience of not just Trumpies but other conservatives and a good number of liberals who feel a need to monitor him. You can’t own the libs if the libs aren’t listening.