Without 'Libs' to Dunk On Reactionaries on X Face a Crisis of Relevance
As liberals exit X, reactionaries find themselves without the opposition that fuels their influence.
Ever since Elon Musk took over the platform formerly known as Twitter—now rebranded as X—the social media landscape has been anything but stable. The site’s atmosphere has drifted dramatically, becoming increasingly hostile and unwelcoming to many of its original users. Hate speech has found a louder voice, right-wing propaganda is more prominent, and the general user experience has deteriorated. As a result, an increasing number of people are deciding they’ve had enough. They’re leaving X and migrating to alternatives like Bluesky and Threads in search of healthier online communities.
This exodus presents a conundrum for the reactionaries who remain on X. Their online existence is heavily dependent on the very people they’re pushing away. Without “libs” to dunk on, troll, or “trigger,” all they have are themselves.
Right-wing influencers and politicians have long used platforms like X to spread their messages far and wide. The appeal isn’t just in preaching to the choir; it’s about reaching a broader audience that includes their ideological enemies. The confrontations that arise from this dynamic generate engagement—likes, retweets, comments—that amplify their reach and influence.
As more liberals and moderates leave X, the platform risks becoming a monoculture similar to fringe sites like Gab or Truth Social. While these platforms offer a haven for conservative voices, they lack the diversity necessary to influence mainstream discourse. The content becomes repetitive, the engagement dwindles, and the ability to sway public opinion diminishes.
As The Atlantic’s Ali Breland writes in a recent piece:
Of course, if X becomes more explicitly right wing, it will be a far bigger conservative echo chamber than either Gab or Truth Social. Truth Social reportedly had just 70,000 users as of May, and a 2022 study found just 1 percent of American adults get their news from Gab. Still, the right successfully completing a Gab-ification of X doesn’t mean that moderates and everyone to the left of them would have to live on a platform dominated by the right and mainline conservative perspectives. It would just mean that even more people with moderate and liberal sympathies will get disgusted and leave the platform, and that the right will lose the ability to shape wider discourse.
The conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who has successfully seeded moral panics around critical race theory and DEI hiring practices, has directly pointed to X as a tool that has let him reach a general audience. The reason right-wing politicians and influencers such as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nick Fuentes, and Candace Owens keep posting on it instead of on conservative platforms is because they want what Rufo wants: a chance to push their perspectives into the mainstream. This utility becomes diminished when most of the people looking at X are just other right-wingers who already agree with them. The fringier, vanguard segments of the online right seem to understand this and are trying to follow the libs to Bluesky.
I’ve certainly noticed these “fringier, vanguard segments of the online right” that have tried to find a home for X-like trolling on Bluesky, asking last week, “What is it about right-wing people on the internet that they absolutely need to seek out conflict to the point of setting up accounts on new platforms?”
The answer is that reactionary politics thrives on opposition. This is why this seems to be a largely right-wing phenomenon. The energy comes from pushing against something, whether it's progressive policies, social justice movements, or simply the existence of differing viewpoints. The phrase "triggering the libs" isn't just a meme—it's a core strategy. The goal is to provoke reactions that can then be used to galvanize their own base. They want to make you angry.
Without liberals to react to their provocations, reactionaries lose a crucial part of their engagement strategy. Their posts generate fewer reactions, their messages don't spread as far, and their influence wanes. The absence of opposition turns their once vibrant (if contentious) community into a stagnant pool of agreement.
On the flip side, liberals and progressives are finding that life after X isn't so bad. Alternative platforms offer spaces for more constructive conversations and genuine connections. Without the constant barrage of bad-faith arguments and trolling, these users can focus on building communities around shared values and interests. This doesn’t mean the creation of an echo chamber—I still see more than my fair share of views I disagree with—but a better venue for conversation.
The irony here is palpable. By making X an unwelcoming place, Musk and other reactionaries are effectively undermining their own platform's relevance. The more homogeneous X becomes, the less interesting and influential it is to the outside world.
If the current trend continues, X risks fading into obscurity. Advertisers may pull back due to the controversial content, new users might be hesitant to join a platform known for hostility, and existing users could lose interest without the engagement that comes from diverse interactions.
Meanwhile, the broader conversations about politics, culture, and society will continue elsewhere. Platforms that foster inclusive and respectful dialogue will become the new public squares, leaving X behind as a relic of a more toxic time.
Reactionaries on X might celebrate the departure of liberals, viewing it as a victory in the culture wars. But in doing so, they may be hastening their own decline. Without "libs" to dunk on, the echo chamber grows quieter, the conversations less dynamic, and the influence more contained.
In pushing away those they love to hate, they're isolating themselves from the broader discourse. And perhaps, as the rest of us find new places to connect and engage, that's a fitting outcome. After all, a conversation isn't much of a conversation when everyone agrees—or when no one else is listening.
so interesting. won't it be amazing if a huge step toward defusing the rw doomsday machine, which very smart people have been trying to find a way to do, happens spontaneously, just by us moving out of their battle space and choking off the energy they get from our opposition?
sez.us is another intriguing approach. while other social media platforms are built on generating, sustaining, and rewarding outrage, sez flips that on its head by instead encouraging positive engagement. it gives users tools to flag toxic stuff, and as such reports pile up for a particular user, their reach is increasingly curtailed—instead of amplifying their reach, it muffles it. sez also gives users more descriptive buttons that go way beyond Like, so they can say "this changed my mind," for example.
anyway, excited to see progress being made, at least in the form of experiments like these. we're still smart, we're still willing to experiment, and we're not in the least about to lie down and quit. we're just shifting into a new mode for long-time engagement. long on self-care and kindness, short on obsessive doom scrolling.
I really like that Threads has a general consensus of "mute & block" rather than engage with people who reply in bad faith. Mostly, I've been mute'n'block'ing MRA types on Threads -- I haven't seen much of the other negativity that made me want to quit Twitter. The jury is still out as far as my feelings on BlueSky but I suspect that may work out the same.
I've been active on Threads for quite a while now and I'm still enjoying it. I had an early account on BlueSky and deleted it because it just wasn't engaging, but I recently recreated my account there and it's definitely improved.
Given these are, ultimately, corporate social networks we'll have to wait and see whether that alone will enshittify them but, so far, they're a lot better than Twitter has been for many years.