Conservatives Totally Silent as Trump Starts Pushing ‘Digital Fentanyl’ On TikTok
X/@DonaldJTrumpJr & @Impaulsive
Former President Donald Trump has officially become a TikTok star. His account now boasts over 6.2 million followers and after his latest post with controversial social media influencer and professional wrestler Logan Paul, Trump appears poised to continue his rise on the Chinese-owned app he once deemed a national security threat.
Trump’s light-hearted mock face-off with Paul on TikTok was a far cry from the doomsday rhetoric he and much of the GOP have long aimed at the app – with many dubbing it “digital fentanyl” and warning it was a foreign propaganda tool being used to brainwash America’s youth to hate their own country.
Few topics have sparked fury on the American right the way TikTok has in recent years, resulting in Trump working to ban the app and repeatedly railing against it while in office.
China hawks in the GOP, from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) to Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), and media personalities like Fox’s Mark Levin and Laura Ingraham as well as MAGA influencers like Laura Loomer and Charlie Kirk have all adamantly pushed to ban the app, which Kirk once deemed a “societal toxin.”
Predictably, President Joe Biden was roundly bashed by the right back in February when his campaign joined the platform. Biden was not only accused of going soft on China, but also of hypocrisy as he banned federal employees in 2022 from using the app and recently signed a bill to force TikTok’s Chinese owners to either divest from the app or face a ban in the U.S.
“Hey @joebiden, you’ve done a lot of dumb things over the last 3 years. Handing your data over to China may be the dumbest. Biden is joining TikTok — and partnering with China to spy on the American people,” wrote South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem (R) on X after Biden’s campaign joined TikTok.
“Biden campaign bragging about using a Chinese spy app even though Biden signed a law banning it on all federal devices,” Sen. Josh Hawley posted on X.
Gallagher, who chairs the House committee on China, told Fox News at the time, “If we continue to go down this road, we are going to effectively cede control of our news media to a hostile foreign country. That’s unacceptable. I urge the president’s, you know, Gen Z TikTok adult campaign staffers to reverse course in the interest of national security.”
Trump has since gone significantly further than Biden in his embrace of TikTok; he not only joined the app this month, but has promised to “never” ban the app should he be reelected (in a conversation with Kirk, who too has shifted course).
The former president has also raised eyebrows, even among loyalists like Steve Bannon, for his meetings with Jeff Yass – the hedge fund billionaire who owns a $15 billion stake in TikTok and is currently the GOP’s single biggest donor.
Trump’s sudden about-face on TikTok did not go entirely unnoticed by the right. “This is a big mistake by the Trump campaign,” wrote Ingraham on X, sharing an Axios article on Trump’s vow not to ban TikTok. Loomer fumed at Yass in a March post and accused him being behind Trump’s flip-flop. “Jeffrey Yass, the richest man in Pennsylvania and the largest US investor into Tik Tok. He hates Trump. But he’s leveraging Club for Growth to try to stop Trump from banning Tik Tok,” Loomer wrote, adding, “Disgraceful.”
However, fast-forward to Trump officially posting to the platform and the criticism of Trump opposing the ban has gone from mild to non-existent on the right.
“Donald Trump is going on on TikTok which is a great move because that is where young people consume news,” said Kayleigh McEnany on Fox’s Outnumbered on Wednesday. McEnany’s take was quite the contrast to Outnumbered guest-host Rebeccah Heinrichs, who slammed Biden earlier in the year “for literally welcoming in the Chinese spy balloon in your phone” when he joined the app.
Noem, Hawley, Gallagher, and the rest of the GOP have been largely silent on Trump joining TikTok and his newfound willingness to embrace the “digital fentanyl.” A search of Fox News on SnapStream monitoring shows that Ingraham, Levin, and the other China hawks on Fox have not mentioned Trump joining TikTok — although the network did cover the news.
It’s certainly no surprise that Trump, the loyalty-demanding leader of the GOP, isn’t under friendly fire from a party he has bent to his will. But, the fact that he can get away with such a blatant flip-flop involving national security, China, and an issue the GOP has been laser-focused on for years underlines in bright red just how far the party has moved from being an issue-based, policy-oriented party to one solely animated by the whims and personality of Trump.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
