In the days following Donald Trump’s victory, aided by Elon Musk’s millions and social media platform, liberals en masse searched for an alternative to Musk’s app. Many found a new home at the upstart Bluesky app, which has grown exponentially over the past three weeks.
Much of the Bluesky success has been credited to liberals and progressives choosing to simply separate themselves from Trump supporters. I wonder how much the same dynamic will play out over Thanksgiving dinner tables this year?
To answer that question, it is critical to understand what led to the Bluesky bonanza.
First, Trump’s electoral victory guaranteed a new era of polarization and antipathy. He basically campaigned on a promise to do exactly that. His campaign centered on dividing people by pitting them against “others” — immigrants, transgender individuals or any other group he could marginalize. He promised “retribution.”
Many fervent supporters have delighted post-election in anticipation of the pain he promised to deliver to “enemies within.”
At the same time, Musk used his position as the world’s richest man, and owner of the primary social media app for news and political discourse, X (formerly known as Twitter), to promote Trump’s campaign. Musk allowed abusive, virulent individuals whose accounts had been suspended for far-right rhetoric and conspiracies to return. He seemed to alter the app algorithm to boost pro-Trump accounts, including his own.
Most liberals and progressives were disgusted by the turn of events, but remained plugged into Musk’s social media program through the election. The reasons were varied and overlapping.
Competitors did not offer the type of engagement and information the app they had become accustomed to did. For example, Threads, the Instagram/Facebook-linked answer owned by Meta, throttled news and real-time discussions. Those were the very features end users wanted most.
For many, rebuilding a base of vibrant accounts to follow became a self-fulfilling roadblock. Concerned about small user bases, people believed they could not replicate the flow of information they had curated over years on the old app. Consequently, they did not join those other apps and ensured that the user base remained small.
Individuals with large follower counts worried about starting from scratch. Many made their living as influencers posting to hundreds of thousands of followers gleaned from years of continual effort.
The election changed that. Continuing to support Musk in any manner after Trump’s win proved a bridge too far for millions.
Begun with the support of Jack Dorsey, the very man who founded the app Musk bought, and with a year-and-a-half of beta testing and improvements, Bluesky provided satisfactory answers to many of those concerns. It did not engage in the same throttling behavior as others while letting users report and block abusive trolls. It created a bridge system that ported a user’s followed accounts from Musk’s app over to the Bluesky environ. It created “starter packs” that allowed users to share a list of the accounts they were following and share it with others.
The combination led to growth and success so rapid that the company is racing to add servers and ensure outages are limited.
Personally, I have enjoyed the experience. Many of the most-engaging feeds from the old place have migrated over to Bluesky, meaning that my feed is pretty similar. My follower count is actually significantly greater on Bluesky after three weeks than it ever was before. And I’ve never been shy to block users who turned toxic.
But I have also been seeing a similar transition take place in people’s offline lives.
Many friends and acquaintances have been re-evaluating their relationships post-Trump win. As one person told me about their MAGA family member, “it was irritating and annoying before the election, when it seemed like we might avoid a return to the chaos of a Trump presidency; now I blame them for being part of all the nightmare outcomes I fear will become reality.”
That is already a reality for people I know. Same-sex couples worried that Trump and a Republican Congress will nullify their marriage have suddenly found family openly ridiculing their concern. People with pre-existing medical conditions who are terrified that they will again be uninsurable if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, face ridicule from people they believed to be friends. Women worried about autonomy over their own bodies have been infantilized by fathers who chose Trump over them.
In turn, those fractures have affected holiday plans.
For those fearful of what the next four years means for them, the prospect of traveling across town, much less the country, just to sit down with derisive and dismissive people is too much to ask. Just as they have done with their social media preferences, they have opted out.
What they find when they let go might just be more blue skies than they imagined.
Mario Nicolais is an attorney and columnist who writes on law enforcement, the legal system, health care and public policy. Follow him on BlueSky: @MarioNicolais.bsky.social.
The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.
Follow Colorado Sun Opinion on Facebook.