By Abbie Holmes, Second Year, English
The 2024 US election will go down in history for more than just Donald Trump’s criminal indictments, and success in winning the first non-consecutive second term since 1893. In the new age of the internet, littered with AI and echo chambers, the art of political communication is more complicated than ever. Yet Trump, between all of his online rampages, has somehow managed to master it.
After Elon Musk acquired Twitter (now X) in 2022, the landscape of the site changed immensely. This future was obvious from the get-go, with Musk immediately rearranging his makeshift cabinet, firing four executives (including the CEO and CFO) the same night of purchase. What was once a toxic amalgamation of some of the most entertaining opinions on the internet, is now all of that, alongside a series of far-right rhetoric being shoved down your throat. If you use X, you'll be aware that no matter how many times you select ‘not interested’ you will still be inundated with everything from mind-numbing podcast bros and Andrew Tate fanboys to Neo-Nazis and rape apologists. It sounds extreme - well, it is; a self-constructed echo chamber of extremes in the name of the 1st amendment.
This became particularly telling in light of the 2024 election. Despite Musk’s insistence that X is a safe space for free speech, it seems to be only a safe space for the things that he wants to say and see. Try and respond to one of his tweets with 'cisgender' and see what happens.
So why are people concerned that this has crossed the line from ludicrous to dangerous? We already know that Trump is willing to violate campaign ethics due to the Cambridge Analytica scandal following the 2016 election. For those not in the know, the now-defunct British political consulting firm (which opens a whole other can of worms regarding the ethics of international bodies interfering with elections) worked closely with the Trump campaign in an attempt to sway swing state voters via targeted Facebook ads. The simplified specifics follow as this: the firm accessed data through a separate Facebook app that presented a personality quiz. Though only about a quarter of a million people directly interacted with the app, the design allowed it to collect data from their friends, ultimately harvesting the data of 87m users. The app was then able to separate voters into personality profiles, which allowed for the delivery of highly personal political advertising, all in the hopes of creating another Trump voter.
Though the scandal led to major legal backlash, with Facebook facing a historic $5bn fine from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in 2019, that hasn’t stopped Trump from trying it all again, just shrouded in less secrecy. The tactics during the 2024 election were not so egregious as its 2016 counterpart, but X, and Musk himself, have managed to spread a worrying amount of misinformation, especially in battleground states. Though it would be foolish to ignore the role that Kamala Harris’ poor political communication and failed campaign played in Trump’s victory, there’s no doubt that Musk aided Trump’s win with undemocratic campaign methods. All of this has essentially placed X, and Musk himself, as an unofficial lobbyist, just without all of the restrictions that official interest groups must adhere to.
no matter how many times you select 'not interested' you will still be inundated with everything from mind-numbing podcast bros and Andrew Tate fanboys to Neo-Nazis and rape apologists
Musk’s newfound engagement with politics has now travelled across the pond onto our own shores. Propelling his way onto the scene of UK political funding with a rumoured £80m donation to Reform UK, Musk has already managed to spur Political change at Westminster with Labour examining limits to corporate political funding, true to their manifesto pledge to ‘protect democracy by strengthening the rules around donations to political parties.’
It’s not particularly a surprise that Musk has signed his stamp of approval on the right-wing populism of Reform UK rather than the Labour Government that holds power at Westminster. Trump’s relationship with Starmer’s government is not exactly one of friendship, spurred on by Labour officials campaigning in the US in the lead-up to the election.
Trump’s strained relationship with our government is especially worrying against the backdrop of Trump’s mission to increase the US’ position as a centralised power, indicated by his ongoing threats to pull out of NATO, alongside his Vice President’s disastrous (and worrying) proposals on how to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
A fair amount of the concern surrounding the future of Trump’s new term is likely at least somewhat overblown. Though the electoral dictatorship he’s currently been handed by his control over Congress is no doubt worrying. I, for one, would not be surprised to see a shift in power in favour of the Democrats in the 2026 midterms. The influence of AI is one to watch, but, at present, there is not much evidence of its direct influence on the election’s outcome. For now, we must hope that checks and balances do their job until 2029, and find solace in the fact that, at the very least, Trump won’t be able to run again.
Featured image: Corin Hadley/ Procreate
