By Cliff Montgomery – Jan. 20th, 2025
The Washington Post invented a crisp little quip about Donald Trump during his initial run for the U.S presidency in 2016. They noted that Trump’s political positions are rather like the weather in New England – if you don’t how things are blowing at the moment, just hang in there, because the weather is sure to change completely in 20 minutes.
Now Trump clearly is trying to make a rare appeal to youth culture by claiming that he “saved” the popular TikTok app from being banned in the U.S.A. Already, he appears to have either hired or effected handfuls of young people who have made appearances on corporate media outlets “Thanking President Trump for restoring TikTok.” An odd assessment, since he wasn’t yet president and therefore did not yet have either the legal or moral authority to effect such a reversal.
In fact, true to his proven form, we should remember it wasn’t that long ago that Trump was leading the calls to ban the popular app from the U.S.
A video from four years ago states Trump told reporters traveling with him on Air Force One during his first presidential tenure that he was thinking of banning the Chinese-owned app outright in the States.
Another older video captures Trump telling reporters that banning TikTok outright was indeed one of several options he was considering at that time.
So, what changed the weather in New England? Why would a 78-year-old man with little working knowledge of the Internet and a dismissive, even antagonistic attitude toward all things Chinese suddenly decide to “save” an Internet app that only young people care about – a group that rarely votes for him?
If one is old enough, a person might remember something involving President-elect Ronald Reagan and a deal secretly made with Iranian officials in early 1980 that reporters have taken to calling the “October Surprise.”
Reagan talked tough, claiming he’d never make a deal with those who had taken over the U.S. Embassy in Iran in 1979 and held U.S. citizens hostages for 444 days- but that’s exactly what he did, behind the scenes in a discreet gentleman’s agreement.
It was of course kept secret – thus making it falsely appear to many Americans that the Iranians were afraid, or at least respected, the incoming president. Reagan reaped the benefits of this misperception for years afterwards.
It wasn’t true, of course – but in politics, perception is everything.
This could conceivably be Trump’s “January Surprise” – applying what he learned from Reagan’s action, and hoping to benefit from a similar action himself.
He is indeed a quick learner. After Hilary Clinton began calling the proven news source WikiLeaks, “fake news,” Trump started applying the term to any shred of reportage that he felt painted him in less than messianic terms. “Fake News” became one of his favorite pathetic insults which he was ever ready to hurl at any reporters who uncovered unpleasant truths about him that his money could not spin and his denials could not hide.
Now, we at the Spark don’t have any solid evidence that such a “gentlemen’s agreement” has been made between Donald Trump and the executives running TikTok. But it would explain his sudden interest in saving the app – especially since he previously had led the charge to ban the app from the U.S. altogether.
His own sad attempt at creating a social media site – TruthSocial – has so far failed to gain much interest – in fact, according to CNN Trump has lost $4 billion on the faltering venture, and his buddy Elon Musk has all but destroyed what was left of Twitter’s old glory after its overly-judgmental base drove away ordinary people to other platforms.
But TikTok’s popularity is beyond question – and the info it may collect on young Americans may be just the thing an expecially shameless man like Donald Trump would happily exploit.
One little problem: If it’s true, we should consider that collecting so much personal info for political manipulation of U.S. masses may prove to be dangerously illegal. Stay tuned…
