Trump: Political Power as a Digital Platform

Historically, the modern state has been built upon tangible institutions—constitutional, legislative, judicial, executive, media, and civil—that manage the core functions of governance and organize the lives of citizens. To achieve their intended objectives—enhancing state capacity and promoting public welfare—these institutions have operated according to established laws, regulations, and procedures.

Within this framework, political authority has traditionally been exercised through carefully structured institutional processes. Policies, strategies, and decisions are formulated within the machinery of government, passing through multiple levels of deliberation before being announced and implemented by the appropriate state bodies.

The digital age, however, with its communication technologies and artificial intelligence, has introduced a new model of political power that increasingly bypasses conventional institutions. At the center of this transformation is the digital platform, which has, to varying degrees, begun to assume functions once associated with traditional state institutions, becoming a new arena through which political authority is exercised.

A growing body of recent political literature identifies Donald Trump as a pioneering figure in establishing what might be called the digital platform as a form of political authority. As one scholar observes:

"For Trump, the digital platform has ceased to be merely a technological tool for announcing decisions or communicating with supporters. Instead, it has become a space through which political power is exercised by circumventing the normal legislative, executive, judicial, and partisan channels—so much so that, on many occasions, the American presidency appeared to have moved from the Oval Office to the digital platform."

The author argues that Trump's political practice has effectively laid the foundations for what may be described as the Platform State.

From Institutional Space to Algorithmic Space

According to many analysts, employing digital platforms as a primary instrument of political authority represents a profound transformation.

Political authority increasingly merges with the dynamics of digital platforms, where political ideas and statements are produced in real time, spread at remarkable speed, and capture public attention across social classes, generations, and national borders.

The book The Siren's Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource explains how content published on social media platforms generates an endless stream of data and information. These vast quantities of information are processed by algorithms, which are not merely technical tools but sophisticated systems capable of analyzing immense volumes of data, identifying patterns, organizing information, and presenting users with knowledge, recommendations, and conclusions almost instantaneously.

Within this environment, the relationship between citizens and political authority changes fundamentally. Citizens no longer receive political information primarily through newspapers or official speeches. Instead, they encounter an uninterrupted flow of short messages, videos, and social media posts, selected and prioritized by algorithms according to their previous interests and online behavior.

As a result, citizens increasingly interact not with the state itself but with a digitally reconstructed version of it, curated by algorithmic systems.

This gives rise to what the author describes as the "algorithmic citizen"—an individual whose political consciousness is shaped more by digital platforms than by educational institutions or traditional media.

The greatest danger, in the author's view, is that long-term institutional thinking gradually gives way to an immediate, reactive style of governance, driven more by engagement metrics and online visibility than by effectiveness, sound policymaking, or institutional accountability.

The "Clicktatorship"

This transformation inspired American political scientist Donald Moynihan to publish an article in the progressive American magazine The Atlantic, entitled "Donald Trump Has Built a Clicktatorship." The term combines the words "click" and "dictatorship" to describe a new model of governance.

Moynihan argues that Trump's second administration no longer merely uses social media as a communication tool. Instead, it represents a fundamentally different style of government in which digital platforms become the primary environment where political decisions are shaped, while political success is measured less by effective governance or institutional integrity than by online engagement and audience reach.

The article opens broader questions about the emergence of the Platform State and the phenomenon of Clicktatorship.

According to this perspective, officials increasingly approach "everything as content." Economic crises, international conflicts, deportation operations, judicial disputes, and partisan disagreements are all transformed into material for continuous publication, circulation, and online confrontation.

Political debate is thereby shifted away from its traditional institutional arenas into the digital sphere.

The author further argues that a significant portion of political authority under Trump has come to depend upon producing highly visible images and viral moments, regardless of whether policymaking remains democratic, institutional, or well deliberated.

The overriding objective becomes sustaining public attention—even at the expense of what many scholars describe as the undermining of institutions.

This concern is also explored in the 2025 book Overcoming Trumpism: How to Save American Democracy, which argues that Trump no longer needs to wait for institutional reports, parliamentary deliberations, or party recommendations before announcing policy positions.

Instead, digital platforms themselves provide an alternative source of political legitimacy. They allow political leaders to communicate directly with millions of citizens without institutional intermediaries and enable them to reshape the national political agenda on a daily basis.

Under this model, the platform ceases to be merely a communication medium; it becomes a parallel institution and a structural component of contemporary political power.

Conclusion

The author concludes that the simultaneous rise of the Platform State, Clicktatorship, and the growing influence of digital oligarchies is unlikely to be a coincidence. Rather, these developments appear to be interconnected dimensions of a broader transformation in political power—one that demands far deeper research, analysis, and understanding.

Originally published in Al-Masry Al-Youm (Egypt).