Megan McArdle asks a question which, frankly, puzzled me in its lack of perception in her latest Washington Post column. What if Facebook’s banning of Trump is a bad call?
I wish I were surer that the answer is yes. In the short term, I’m sure it will be restful for those who were appalled and exhausted by Trump’s endless social media outrages. This might even make it impossible for him to reassemble his 2016 coalition, which could make for a more normal politics in the next few years. But what about the longer term?
Trump’s professional-class enemies probably have the power to send him into electronic Coventry, out of sight and out of mind. But they can’t banish his supporters or the very real divides in American politics that Trump exacerbated. What happens to those divides if Trump is anathematized by the mainstream but still lingers just outside it, forgotten by many but not actually gone?
The question practically answers itself. It you have fully embraced the views of the German philosopher Herbert Marcuse and I believe that today’s progressives have, you believe that, contrary to the Enlightenment view and contrary to ethicists like, say, John Rawls, you believe that tolerating intolerance is wrong. When you add to that an a priori conviction that Trump and his supporters are bigots, not only was banning his access to social media the right thing to do it was a moral obligation.
I think I see things a bit differently (as usual). I think that social media in essence created Trump—his mastery of them enabled him to dispatch his Republican opponents with ease. Live by the tweet; die by the tweet.
Despite the slackjaws, there was obvious fraud in the election. That said, I pointed out to anyone who would listen that Trump was his own worst enemy. He should have picked a date, perhaps 1 year before the election, and STFU with the tweets and coarse hyperbole. It turned enough people off to facilitate the fraud.
As far as Facebook or Twitter goes, who the hell goes there, anyway? It served Trump only because the traditional media is a bunch of propagandists.
Well, certainly the most extreme and politically active and the members of the press.
There obviously was not real fraud in the election as Republican officials across the nation, Republicans in Congress and Trump’s own legal team couldn’t find it. If it’s really that big of an issue then we will end up with Facebook for conservatives.
Steve
That’s not quite true, steve. What is true is that the courts refused to hear the cases. The reluctance of the courts to interfere in elections is a sufficient explanation for their refusal; you cannot conclude the absence of fraud from that.
That is not quite true either. They did hear some of the cases and found no fraud. Here in PA, and other places as I recall, they specifically did not hear the case because no proof was offered, just allegations. Finally, a bunch of the “fraud cases” were actually claims that it was the process that was illegal and not claims of fraud.
This of course ignores the fact that the Republican officials in the affected states also found no fraud.
Steve
Keep in mind that although I think there was fraud and probably fraud at a higher level than is the case in all elections I don’t believe that fraud alone is enough to explain the outcome. I think it was a very close election and Biden won narrowly.
Progressives under the cover of the safe and reasonable Biden joining with the tech titans to ban the speech of an opposition
leader will be a motivator in the next election and the next after that.
When the elites become arrogant, the mob resents them.
Cases of fraud were not heard because of “ lack of standing†or were thrown out on “process†technicalities. There was only one lower court, I’m aware of, who actually heard the evidence, thought it had merit, sent it up to the state’s higher court (controlled by Dems) who promptly dismissed it without hearing the evidence. Also, something like 6-7 states sent competing R electors to be considered on that final decision day, January 6th. Of course with backup requests being denied to the Capitol Police, and the day before to Trump’s national guard request – even in lieu of intel predicting problems ahead of time – it created a perfect storm of chaotic distraction so no evidence was heard, and all of the state’s alternative electors to be speedily dismissed.
Even now, in Maricopa County, it has been one obstruction after another delaying or preventing the processing of a forensic audit the AZ State Senate has authorized. Currently Dominion is refusing to provide the password to access their machine’s data. Why? If there was no fraud why not prove it for the millions of skeptics who think this election was riddled with corruption and manipulated ballots?