Surely no one felt more desperation for Mastodon to operate as an adequate substitute for Twitter than GOP leadership in the aftermath of Trump's Twitter ban and the 2020 election. If those people, the most motivated people in all of time to make Mastodon work, can't make Mastodon work, then I struggle to see how the Musk-haters plan to switch over successfully.

I'd apply the same argument to every other platform - if someone could have done it better than Twitter, then you'd better believe that the GOP would have already been all-in on that platform long before you got there.