Opinion | How MAGA become TikTok's unlikely ally

By Tom Fowdy

Many people will remember that back in 2020, the Trump administration attempted to ban viral social media application TikTok via an executive order. The botched effort to force its sale failed after it was countered by a legal challenge, yet as we see with the recent congressional bill this has hardly settled the mass hysteria and unsubstantiated paranoia pertaining to the platform. However, in an extraordinarily rare turn of events, and despite that past attempt at banning it, Donald Trump of all people has now decided that he in fact opposes a ban.

His comments have quickly had a domino effect in the "MAGA" camp, with key figures such as Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson also affirming their opposition to a ban. In addition, maverick Republican Libertarian congressman Thomas Massie also made a public statement against it in a tweet that went viral on Twitter with 11 million views. In each case, the decision to oppose the proposed TikTok ban was not motivated by amicability to China, but rather concerns over the legal precedent such a move would inevitably set.

After all, if you give the government the power to arbitrarily ban or force one social media application on the vague premise it is controlled or influenced by a foreign adversary, which TikTok's case has not in fact been proven at all, what else can apply to? Key of course to this MAGA position is the political memory of how the insinuation of "Russiagate" was used to affirm, from the Democratic camp, greater control of social media platforms under the auspices of "foreign interference" which was weaponized in turn, to attack Trump and the MAGA camp. It was for them, a political circus that weaponized fear opportunistically.

For American right-wingers, irrespective of all the fear about China, this taps into a greater anxiety concerning what their discourse likes to describe as "the deep state" which floats the idea of a conspiracy from a series of shadowy elites who work to undermine the freedom of the American people. It is in so many words a manifestation of the Conservative belief in "limited government" and executive power in general which underlined the bulk of Republican criticism concerning the Obama years. No matter what they think of Beijing, the idea the US government via Congress could ban a social media application and set such an alarming precedent is deemed unacceptable.

Of course, the elephant in the room is that Trump already tried to do this himself and his supporters were fine with it, not only that but he tried to ban WeChat and Alipay too. Such hypocrisy however is part and parcel of US partisan politics and it is fair to say in a U-turning like this Trump's position is purely opportunistic, and to that end we should expect him to change his mind again too. To this end, there are also several political "tactical" considerations in why he is opposing the ban. First, he is no longer the President and in running for election again, recognises this is an opportunity to skewer the Biden administration politically. Biden has bizarrely declared himself supportive of a ban which is deeply and overwhelmingly unpopular amongst young people, a constituency he needs to win in order to be re-elected.

Biden's political modus operandi has always been to bandwagon on an anti-China sentiment when it gains political momentum and never push back, but here he is making a big mistake because the youth vote aren't as motivated by Sinophobia as older generations are, and the political backlash against congress speaks for itself. Trump realizes he can exploit this by not only courting the youth vote, but also weaponizing that Republican "anti-government" sentiment by pouring suspicion over the act. But in addition to that, Trump also sees an opportunity to exploit factional divides in the Republican Party by creating a split over the issue, and he's done that already.

Your "mainstream" NeoConservative Republicans, Trump's intra-partisan biggest enemies, such as Marco Rubio are militantly in favor of such a ban, but now Trump has again exerted his influence over the party by setting out the "MAGA" position over the issue, who inevitably follow what he says. This intra-partisan struggle was very prominent during his Presidency and will inevitably continue should he be elected again, although he may lose ground if he is defeated. As always, the MAGA camp will nonetheless frame these NeoConservative Republicans as traitors and followers of the "swamp", "deep state" or whatever it is called. So, what we see here is a tactical gambit by Trump to politically gain by taking a stance which is unconventional to his record. He wants to undermine Biden but also affirm his clout within the Republican Party. Thus, the battle lines are being drawn over TikTok and it has become, like vaccines and COVID, amongst other things, a "culture war" and toxic partisan issue, which for a China matter, is rare because normally it is done according to "bipartisan consensus."

The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

Read more articles by Tom Fowdy:

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