WASHINGTON – The picture of the world has changed since we won the elections, Donald Trump said yesterday Tuesday.
Trump perfectly summed up the mood in the United States for the past few weeks.
The fierce culture war that pierced the entire American society seems to have calmed down. A new, more right-wing era seems to be beginning.
Trump won the presidential election by about the same margin as Joe Biden four years ago, but Trump’s victory brought a clearer change.
A swing to the right belongs to the left in the leaning Washington as silence.
In 2017, the day after Trump’s inauguration, a “women’s march” was organized in Washington, attended by hundreds of thousands of people. Many times more people participated in the protest than in the inauguration itself.
Nothing similar will be organized this time. Instead, Trump wants to celebrate for many days. He is going to fill the city’s largest indoor arena with his supporters a day before his inauguration, which will take place on January 20.
There were only a handful of people protesting the confirmation of the election result in Washington on Monday. A significantly larger group was visiting at the same time a few kilometers away playful snow warbecause the first snow had fallen in the city.
Liberals seem to just want to distance themselves from politics right now.
Single conservative brands can be seen everywhere.
American football matches no longer kneel during the national anthem in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Instead, players have started fanning touchdowns by making Trump famous with a dance move.
Disney removed a plot point from their soon-to-be-released series that focused on it to a transgender character. Numerous companies have shut down in recent weeks its DEI programswhich aimed to make companies more diverse.
Also on the street fashion side traditional Americana is back in fashion, like Ralph Lauren’s sweaters with the American flag embroidered on the sleeves.
It seems as if every area of society now wants to please Trump a little. Even if just to be sure.
The real giants of the US business scene in other words, technology companies have detected the weak signals of cultural change and joined the trend with force.
Elon Musk jumped on Trump’s bandwagon already in the summer. Other tech leaders followed suit no later than after the election and started racing at Trump’s estate in Florida.
Meta, the social media giant known for e.g. Facebook and Instagram, whose services are used by more than three billion people every day, has made the most startling turn in its attitude towards Trump.
For years, Meta has been one of Trump’s antitrust companies. The company added fact-checking to its services after Trump’s first election victory and banned Trump from its platforms after the attack on the Capitol.
In addition, Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife donated around 400 million euros four years ago to build the election infrastructure during the corona pandemic. Trump claimed the funds went to Biden’s campaign.
Last year Trump threatened that he would put Zuckerberg in prison for life if he “interfered” in the presidential election again. Zuckerberg did not donate money to anyone this time.
Yesterday, Tuesday, Zuckerberg seemed to be speaking directly to Trump. He said in the video that Meta is making several changes to his platforms that the Republicans have been wanting.
Zuckerberg said the company would abandon fact-checkers in the United States, stop muting political content, and reduce moderation of discussions related to gender and immigration, among other things. In addition, the entire moderation team is being moved from liberal California to conservative Texas.
More political twists, less cat videos, seemed to be Zuckerberg’s goal in shaping the Facebook and Instagram user experience.
Trump said in his press conferencethat his threats to Zuckerberg likely influenced Meta’s new policies, which are favorable to Republicans.
From the beginning of the week, Zuckerberg also hired a friend of Trump’s, the CEO of the UFC, to Meta’s board by Dana White. Last week, someone close to the Republicans was hired as the company’s new social relations director Joel Kaplan.
After his appointment, Kaplan said in an interview with Fox News that “Trump’s commitment to freedom of expression will also help Meta return to these values.” Trump praised yesterday that Kaplan’s performance was “impressive”.
Zuckerberg’s obvious goal is to please Trump so that Meta maintains a good position in the competition against the Chinese Tiktok. Tiktok’s future in the US is uncertain.
For several years, Meta has been in the clutches of the US competition authority, the FTC, for restricting competition.
According to the FTC, Meta deliberately overpaid to buy Instagram and Whatsapp for itself years ago because it was aiming for a monopoly position in social media services.
Meta is waiting for that trial in April. Zuckerberg fears that Meta can be split into several companies at worst.
Zuckerberg therefore needs to incite Trump so that his administration will drop the charge. Soon to retire as head of the FTC Lian Khan said yesterday on Tuesday that Meta and other companies struggling with antitrust charges are trying to make favorable deals with Trump.
A similar lawsuit also threatens Amazon, whose founder Jeff Bezos on the other hand, he forbade the newspaper he owns, the Washington Post, from giving his support Terrible for Harris in the presidential election. Amazon also paid Trump’s wife this week For Melania around 40 million euros document rights.
Trump returns to the White House in a strong position.
The resistance within the Republicans has been silenced, and the Democrats are blaming each other for the election loss. The leaders of large companies, on the other hand, do not dare to take the risk that they will be thought of as Trump’s opposition this time.