Presidential re-election strategy

This week, U.S. President Donald Trump added another social
media account to his list: Twitch^[1]. Trump isn’t the first
presidential candidate to use Twitch, an Amazon-owned video game
streaming service, as Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang^[2] also use the
platform. 

However, what’s interesting here is that in the past, Trump has
been openly critical of Amazon, which has owned Twitch
since 2014^[3]. Moreover, the American
president has not held his opinion back about what he thinks of
Jeff Bezos^[4], the CEO of
Amazon. 

Trump only joined Twitch a couple of days ago, and as of this
writing, has 39,956
followers^[5]
on the social media site. 

RELATED: PRESIDENT TRUMP JOINS THE
FACEBOOK LIBRA CRITICS^[6]

Presidential re-election strategy

It’s no secret that Trump joining Twitch is part of his
2020^[7]
presidential campaign. It’s yet another platform to reach out to
hundreds of thousands, or even millions of Americans, many of them
young. 

President Trump has created a channel on
Amazon’s Twitch, a sign he plans to use the live-streaming platform
to promote his 2020 re-election campaign https://t.co/xkmb4oHwQl^[8]

It looks like Trump might not use the video game streaming site
for streaming or playing video games. He’s used it to promote his
rally^[10] in Minneapolis,
Minnesota, which took place last night. 

Further down on his Twitch page, there’s a button that allows
followers to donate to his campaign. 

Donald Trump’s Twitch page. Source: Twitch^[11]

However, Trump joining Twitch is still a surprise, even if it
looks like a smart campaign tactic. 

Trump denigrating Amazon

During Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, he openly attacked
Bezos and his ownership of the Washington Post, dubbing it the
“Amazon Washington Post^[12].” Trump believed that
Bezos’ reason for purchasing the Post was in a bid to receive
favorable coverage. 

However, Amazon^[13] does not directly own
the Post. Nash Holdings
Inc.^[14], another company,
started by Bezos, bought the Post. Trump, though, stuck to his guns
and said this about the parent company: “If I become president, oh,
do they have problems.”

Trump’s dislike for Amazon didn’t end there. In August of this
year, via the White House, he ordered the Department of Defence to
carefully look into a $10 billion^[15] contract regarding
cloud computing. His reasons?^[16] “Because of concerns
that the deal would go to Amazon.”

It’s crystal clear that Trump dislikes Amazon. What’s less clear
is why Trump is comfortable joining a site that is directly owned
by Amazon.

Perhaps Trump is branching out and finding new ways to reach out
and gather supporters, even if that means using one of Bezos^[17]‘ platforms.