2. Even if it were somehow representative, is it more plausible that all of these people were on X getting these ideas (a platform that is small relative to other media), or that these ideas were simply blasted everywhere?

3. And even if it were somehow representative, and they did get those ideas from X, what makes you think that not having those ideas "false" ideas would have changed the election outcome [1]? People more often use "facts" to justify political positions they've already made, not the other way around.

[1] https://time.com/7263845/facts-dont-matter-misinformation-es...

Likewise, the idea that a hammer has influence on building a house is laughable. But, of course, that is not what was said. It was said that Elon Musk had influence, helped by tools like X.

I fully expect that "Elon is gonna come and clean up all the useless jobs in government just like he did at X!" won a lot of votes. So, while X itself has no influence – it is inanimate, it was undoubtedly an important tool in allowing Musk to achieve the influence he offered.

> it was undoubtedly an important tool in allowing Musk to achieve the influence he offered.

I doubt it completely, mainly because there is no evidence of this, but please do cite the evidence that convinced you of this. Until then, I'll consider the most plausible scenario to be that this is a convincing story you've told yourself because social media is likely a big part of your life, and the lives of your immediate social circle, so of course you would think it was important, despite X/Twitter's relative unimportance compared to other social media.

Sure. I can agree that "He used a hammer to help build that house" and "A hammer was an integral part of building that house" can be taken to mean the same thing. So it follows that X was an integral part of getting Trump elected by way of Musk using it to convince people that he has some kind of skill in hacking and slashing jobs thus being able to do the same in government.

> mainly because there is no evidence of this

You didn't hear Trump say that he would call upon Musk to do reduce government operations? – what at some point was labelled DOGE? In fact, he even followed through with it! This is all news to you?

> this is a convincing story you've told yourself because social media is likely a big part of your life

It was a convincing story reported in the mainstream press. I don't live in the US, so maybe it has all been made up – I'm not there to witness anything else, but the idea that the press would create "fake news" is more of a US thing that maybe you’ve fallen prey to. Our media outlets still have credibility. If you know something else to be the case, it is you who should be telling me. Me "proving" it to you makes no sense. You clearly didn't think that one through.