Opinion by Hal Brown
I was thinking that if Trump, known for being capable of tweeting with his smartphone, would be capable of actually writing a blog using a laptop. It occurred to me that he might not even know how to use a laptop so I googled the question and came up with an answer:
Donald Trump actually used a laptop for his Reddit AMA, The Verge
Donald Trump's short and inoffensive "ask me anything" session on Reddit this evening didn't give much of an insight into the extravagantly coiffed man who could be US president, but thanks to a photo posted to his official Facebook page, we get to see just what he was up to when he was answering tonight's questions.
Specifically — sitting on a plane and seemingly typing his answers with one hand. It's the same hand that seems to have a mind of its own during Trump's speeches, pointing, waving, and otherwise flitting about as its owner makes his points, and it, combined with Trump's expression of mild confusion, makes the pose look a little awkward.
The image is one of the rare times we've actually got to see Trump near a laptop — or a computer of any kind. According to a New York Times profile earlier this year, the business celebrity turned presidential candidate doesn't even keep a laptop in his office, calling for one to be brought in specifically when there's a video or an article he needs to see or read. Emails are also printed and presented to the candidate, rather than read on-screen.
Trump obviously preferred the format of Twitter, but my web search showed that he at least has a rudimentary ability to use a laptop.
Over 20 years ago I began writing non-political websites using Geocities, Angelfire, and Tripod where content had to be coded using html. One was about the cranberry industry, and the other was about police stress. Both were the top rated sites covering the subject matter.
Now there are 20 major website builders most starting off as free but with fee based add ons and a charge for registering your own URL (web address). They compete with bells and whistles but all of them promote themselves as being so simple to use even a mentally challenged ex-president child can construct a website.
Basically all a blog is is a website where one or more people publish their own material. They are usually frequently updated, often every day. The term started out in the 1990’s as weblog (web and log) but was shortened to blog.
Some blogs by ordinary people become wildly popular while others are by people who are better known. Here’s a list of the 50 most popular blogs from 2021.
Trump already has registered numerous website names, including DonaldTrump.com, so all he’d have to do is select this to use for his blog. I assume all or most site URL’s with just his last name are owned by him.
According to The Best Trump Parody Websites:
Despite the Trump organisation buying up more than 3000 web domains in order to avoid misuse against the president, the domain trumphotels.org slipped through the empire’s radar and got recently turned into a Trump parody website portraying the country’s new immigration laws. The site, referring to Trump’s real estate enterprises, features pictures and videos of child concentration camps, using Trump’s previous rants against Mexicans to describe the hotels’ clientele.
The maker of trumphotels.org, a conservative US lawyer, is highlighting atrocities the Trump government is committing against foreigners, mainly Mexicans, and children. Articles on the website are cleverly linked to official news publications. A click onto the hotel’s service Handicap Accessibility, for instance, leads to a CNN report about Trump mocking a reporter with disabilities.
If Trump started a blog I’d expect a number of people to start their own satirical or parody sites. For example, Trumpspeaks.com and Trumpspeaks.net aren’t available but Trumpspeaks.org is for $20 a year.
No matter what URL Trump uses he'd better make sure he registers all the domain extensions with his name. Domains are the letters after the dot. There are hundreds of domains.
If you think Devin Nunes was bothered by the Devin Nunes Cow website consider what would happen if Trump tried to have a blog. I think we’d have the modern version of the 1893 Land Rush with creative people grabbing internet names and domain extensions so that can construct their own sites lampooning whatever Trump posts on his blog.
For his needs it makes sense for Trump to have his own blog. There are benefits to blogging over using Twitter.
With a blog he is in total control. Even though he reached a huge audience on Twitter he couldn’t control the replies to each tweet. While many supporters replied, his critics also posted replies and many of the more biting, sarcastic, and clever ones made it into online articles. You don’t have to allow comments to your blog posts.
It wouldn’t take long for Trump to get just about all of his Twitter followers to read his blog. Of course he couldn’t resist trying to raise funds with ads on his blog but without compelling but without new content readers would soon tire of looking at it and if that happened it would cease to be as viable a way to raise money. It still would be better than Twitter for money raising since in 2019 they scrapped political advertising.
News organizations would most likely assign someone to monitor the blog that same way they did with his Twitter account. If he posted something they deemed newsworthy it would be publicized.
If he devoted as much time to the blog as he did to tweeting he could easily fit blogging into his schedule.
I am really surprised that for all the social media and website building expertise of Brad Parscale, who is apparently still in his good graces, we have yet to see a Trump blog.
How long will it be for Trump the ex-president to become Trump the blogger? What do you think? Take the poll.