The right wing has a blue sky problem.

Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022 and later changed it to X, unaffected users have been talking about its departure once and for all. Maybe they could post something about how X is worse to use? How does it conceal white supremacists? It pushes right-wing posts into their feeds. Or how offensive they find the fact that Musk is close to Donald Trump? Then they set off. Or at least some people do. For the most part, X is considered the closest thing to a center stage for political and cultural discourse.

But that may be changing. After Trump’s election victory It seems like more and more people are getting serious about quitting, according to similar websitesOne week after the election Social media analytics company It’s seen the highest spike in deactivations of X accounts since Musk took over the site. Many of these users have fled to Bluesky: the Twitter-like microblogging platform has added about 10 million new accounts since October.

The But there’s no guarantee they’ll continue to use it. In a sense, this is a victory for conservatives: as the left flees and X loses its broader relevance. It also became a more openly right-wing site. But right-wing parties need to be liberal on Convincing people to join a political movement may not be as good.

The number of people leaving X indicates that something is changing. But raw user numbers don’t fully capture what the site means. Twitter’s value proposition is that relatively influential people talk to each other. In theory, you could log on to Twitter and see a country singer ribbing with a cable news anchor. The billionaire talks nonsense. Artists talk about media theory Historians quarrel viciously. And celebrities share interesting anecdotes about their lives. More than anywhere else You can see the unvarnished thoughts of someone who is quite powerful and influential. And anyone even you can start a conversation with this type of person. As each wave leaves X, the site gradually becomes less valuable to those who remain. This creates a cycle that slowly but surely reduces the relevance of X.

Here’s how you get something approaching Gab or Truth Social. Both are platforms with modest but persistent users, which can be useful for conservatives to send a message to their base: Rump owns Truth Social and has announced several Cabinet picks on its website (as Interior Secretary nominee Doug Burgum noted at the beginning of this month(“Nothing is true until you read it on Truth Social”), but these platforms are of little use to the general public. A rare example of an actual echo chamber.Where conservative groups can come together to join forces and strengthen their ideology. These are not gaps that mean much to anyone who is not just a conservative. But it also has meaning. the most Which is conservative. Ordinary people don’t log on to Gab and Truth Social. These places are for political fanatics who are dissatisfied with talk radio and Fox News. They are for open-minded anti-Semites. Neo-Nazis who unabashedly post swastikas, transgender people, and people who say they need at Kill the Democrats

Of course, if X becomes more clearly right-wing. It would be a much bigger conservative echo chamber than Gab or Truth Social. Social Truth It is reported that there is As of May, it had just 70,000 users, and a 2022 study found that only 1 percent of American adults get their news from Gab. Gab-ification of X does not mean that moderates and everyone to their left must live on a platform dominated by right-wing and mainstream conservative views. It just means that moderate and liberal people will feel more disgusted and leave the stage. And the right will lose the ability to shape the broader discourse.

Christopher Rufo, conservative activist who have succeeded in inciting a moral panic about critical race theory and DEI hiring practices; Point directly to X such as He sat up. that makes him accessible to the general public The reason why right-wing politicians and influencers like Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nick Fuentes, and Candace Owens posted this message instead of on conservative platforms. Because they wanted what Rufo wanted: a chance to push their views into the mainstream. This utility is diminished when the majority of people watching X are just other right-wingers. who already agrees with them The online vanguard seems to understand this and so does. Trying to follow libs to Bluesky–

Liberals and leftists don’t want online rights the way the right wants liberals and leftists. The nature of reactionary politics Demanding continued confrontation – literally reaction – to the left, people like Rufo will have a much harder time trying to influence opinions on platforms that are not liberal. “Running the libs” sounds like a joke. But it is often necessary for right-wing groups. This explains the popularity of some X accounts with millions of followers, such as TikTok’s Libs, which aim to troll liberals.

The more liberals leave X, the less value it provides to the right. Both in terms of cultural relevance and lure opportunities, Immigration X will not happen overnight. Some users may be reluctant to leave as it has been difficult to rebuild the audience over the years. And network effects will make X relevant. But it’s not like platforms have to last forever. Old habits die hard, but they can die.