Jared Kushner reportedly intervened to prevent President Donald Trump from joining free speech social media platforms, according to sources within the Trump administration.
John McEntee, a longtime Trump aide, had encouraged the President to establish a presence on Parler and Gab earlier this week, around the same time that Parler was deplatformed by Amazon oligarch Jeff Bezos for enabling free speech. Kushner reportedly urged the President not to, claiming that the free speech networks were “fringe” and that they weren’t worthy of the President’s brand.
Most Trump supporters in turn view Big Tech’s ideology of extreme censorship and bias against the Right as “extremist” in its own right, a view Kushner apparently doesn’t share.
Sources within the White House indicated Wednesday that President Trump was seriously considering joining one of the platforms. He’s been banned from nearly every social media platform, with Big Tech kingpins desperately seeking an outcome in which the American media environment returns to the stale, neoliberal hegemony of the early 2010’s.
President Trump has suggested he’s interested in playing a role in a social media platform free of the auspices of Big Tech, an opportunity that could potentially prove to be gainful for existing platforms and the deplatformed President.
Trump’s delay in signing up for free speech social media platforms may only be temporary, with his associates under the impression that he’s going to get his historic Twitter account back. In the meantime, Kushner’s actions seem to have silenced the President, delivering a long-sought goal of the leading oligarchs and American corporate media companies.