Donald Trump has made it clear he won’t go quietly into that dark night of obscurity at Mar-a-Lago, no, he plans to rage, rage against the dying of the tweet. In his remaining nine days in office (he said he would leave the White House on the 19th) Trump plans to mount a mighty assault against Twitter in particular and Big Tech in general. The resources of the White House — whoever is left, besides the cleaning ladies — are being gathered and Trump’s staunchest allies are blasting Twitter and stomping off the site. We’re sure Jack Dorsey is losing a lot of sleep over this. Washington Post:
For now, the White House is considering an early push as soon as Monday against Twitter and other tech giants, blasting it for having silenced the president’s ability to reach supporters while calling for fresh regulation against Silicon Valley, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Trump, who is apoplectic about being banned, plans to spend the final days of his term in office railing against the industry, the person said.
I love the adjective “apoplectic” meaning “denoting apoplexy (stroke)” to describe Trump’s state of mind. They used to say in journalism school that there was only one perfect word to describe something and I think Trump being ready to have a stroke after being banned on Twitter is unquestionably the right way to say it.
And look who’s back on the Trump train after saying “count me out” just a few days ago.
I’m more determined than ever to strip Section 230 protections from Big Tech (Twitter) that let them be immune from lawsuits.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) January 9, 2021
Let Lindsey and the rest of Trump’s goon squad do their damnedest. It’s not going to hurt Twitter. If anything, if Section 230 protections would be gone, it will result in Twitter banning more accounts than ever in order to reduce its potential liability and that will reduce the efficacy of the QAnon crazies and hamstring their machinations. This is just hollow posturing because the base responds to buzz words and slogans and so “strip Section 230” sounds big and tough. It’s a bluff.
It’s good that Twitter has taken this action now and a shame it didn’t take it sooner, because Twitter has been used as a digital war room for the crazies to plot violence against democracy, plain and simple. The Hill:
For five days leading up to the riot, when a mob forced its way into the Capitol, there were 1,480 posts on Twitter from QAnon-related accounts about the Jan. 6 date that contained “terms of violence,” according to the Advance Democracy report.
One account related to the QAnon conspiracy theory late Tuesday night tweeted, “WE are all done being the bigger person, no more MR. NICE PATRIOT! it’s Time for Patriots to Rise up, Kick The Tires and Light the Fires, and Kick Ass and Take Names!!,” according to the report.
Advance Democracy also identified four TikTok videos with between 1,900 views and 279,000 views that called for violence or rebellion during pro-Trump demonstrations scheduled for Jan. 6.
It gets whackier still. The conspiracy community was allowed to grow too large and now everything is a conspiracy.
Trump supporters posting on TheDonald.win, for example, are even questioning the validity of Trump’s own video released Thursday ensuring a smooth transition to the Biden administration, despite it being released by the president’s verified account.
Numerous posts on the pro-Trump forum baselessly claimed that the video was a “deep fake.” A White House spokesperson was not immediately available for comment in response to such allegations.
Trump has nurtured unreality for so long and it has gotten out of control. He did it for attention. He is unquestionably losing his mind right now without the ability to immediately affect the ethernet using his medium of choice. Massive attention was never more than a keystroke away when Trump had Twitter.
More than any other social service, the loss of Twitter seemed to strike a personal note: Trump had been obsessed with the platform, and he loved to post a tweet and time how long it would take to command attention on television. He often would pull out his phone and say, “Watch this, bing bing bing,” recalled senior administration officials. And Trump regularly would tell senators, world leaders and others about his most popular posts, scrolling through his mentions for feedback and ideas.
Twitter was his toy, his bestest most favorite toy. Unfortunately, it’s a toy he didn’t own and doesn’t have the right to control. Twitter is like a big hotel, you can get a room and stay there as long as you don’t break the rules. Donald broke all of them, repeatedly and he couldn’t take a hint and they so they threw him out. And if he’s ready to have a stroke over it, it’s because he simply cannot grasp the fact that he can’t be someplace where he wants to be, because somebody else — namely the owner — says he can’t.
Well, at least we know what to expect for the next week and what the resources of government will be wasted on, while the pandemic rages and the economy languishes. Melania said about Donald, “when you hit him, he hits back ten times as hard.” Let him give it his best shot. He can’t do anything to Twitter. Even if he had passed the Section 230 legislation, he would have only been banned sooner.
He’s got nowhere to go and nobody to play with now. And he did it to himself. He couldn’t restrain his own impulses so now they’re being restrained by others, for the good of the larger community. That’s how life works and Donald Trump has lived 74 years and is just now finding that out.
An old friend of mine, who became quite wealthy in the medical field and gradually took on the Libertarian mantle also became a trump supporter for financial reasons. If you are in the 1% trump has been kind. Yesterday he posted on FB that he was closing his FB and Twitter accounts and moving over to Parler. I reminded him that both Google and Apple have removed the Parler app from their stores. Haven’t heard back from him yet…
He sounds like a bona fide cult member. I’m sure they’re taking it hard.
Parker is gone!!!
And good riddance! It’s making it that much harder for the trumpers to organise their next insurrection scheduled for Jan 17-20. They still have reddit and the 4/8 chans though.
Actually, they don’t have Reddit either or at least Trump doesn’t. They kicked him off there too. Do you know how bad you have to eff up to do that with REDDIT? You’d have to insult Fred Rodgers at minimum.
May he lose far more than he planned on. Effing Libertarians…them and the Randians piss me off because they lie to themselves about how selfish they are and why.
If only it were themselves they were lying to nobody I myself wouldn’t give a happy rat’s a*s. They spew their nonsense far and wide. Calling themselves “libertarians” makes it seem like it’s all about freedom rather than being anything but. It’s the usual ‘pube money grab and social conservatism but hiding behind a name that fools people into thinking they’re not like the hidebound religiosos in the ‘pube party. Except that is exactly what they are.
Hallelujah! It was like giving a 3 year old a baseball bat and allowing them to hit anything and anyone as much as they wanted.
That’s exactly right. You and I and the rest of the world are pinatas and Trump’s got a bat. And he thinks everyday is his birthday and he gets to break everything. That’s about the size of it.
I dunno, that stupid, stupid sociopath has always put me in mind of an enraged 2 year-old given a flamethrower and turned loose in a Walmart, but that’s just me
Only way that’d be credible as an analogy is if your toddler made the flamethrower blow up in their hands.
Section 230 protections don’t just apply to the big platforms, like Twitter. They apply to all platforms, including the little ones, like Parler and Gab. They are by far the most vulnerable to lawsuits because of the libelous content they permit, and would be put out of business quickly. I’d love to see Trump build his own platform and watch it fail.
I can’t agree more. He’s trying to legislate the means of his own destruction and he can’t see it — but then he’s never been able to see that he’s the architect of his own adversity, so on that level it makes total sense. I think he’s got a lot of so-called advisers just playing along with him on this and talking about Section 230, because they know it’s a bad idea and doesn’t stand a chance in hell of ever passing.
It’s amazing to me he doesn’t recognize this. He thinks “Section 203” would only apply to people saying things he doesn’t like about him but fans to recognize that it would apply to him too.
Reality 1 – frump 0
Reality: 2021. Trump: -11,780
Trump: – 7,000,000
Biden 9,000,000 the orange turd loses!
OMG! This is not a bad dream! It really happened and he is not through yet! I have a terrible feeling that he is saving his best for last! Like blowing up the white house! Pence fell down by not declaring he is insane! He is a maniac! His poor son, baron, has to take that name to his grave
Isn’t it hilarious that Trump thinks he can do all this damage to Twitter and Big Tech in the next week? Good luck, buddy. Joe Biden can tell you about the glacial speed at which legislation moves. Ask him.
Louis XIV infamously declared himself the state. Trump is stupidly attempting to make himself God. This should go well :/
I agree. I don’t think either he or his maniac militias are done yet. I expect something is planned for the 20th, and it could be a lot worse than what we saw this week. Given how unremorseful the magats are, many are even more enraged, we’re not out of this yet and I’d bet their violence spreads out to all the states. I hope all of our elected officials (except the magaty ones) have expert and trustworthy security around them at all times. I don’t expect to truly relax until we get down the road a ways, maybe Feb or March. Maybe.
All element of surprise is gone, however. Every instigator at that coup will be identified by then as well as every associate from their parents to their mailman. And with Trump seriously compromising security, any member of Congress who is afraid for their life WILL make the necessary arrangements with people they trust.
They’re just dumb enough to try again. But this time, THEY’LL be the ones running away if they go there.
Also several HUMILIATED Law Enforcement Agencies will have numbers there on the 20th.
It won’t matter WHAT orders they have, most of the individual LEO’s will be genuinely on battle alert.
Oh, you know it, Ozajh. And that’s before you get into the death of Officer Sicknick. ANY dummy who shows up for Round 2 is going to get clobbered at minimum. And that’s just if the cops are in a good mood.
They were planning on the 20th LONG before the 6th and Trump was already telling them to come to D.C. for a counter-inauguration. That’s not new. What is is the enhanced security and the rate at which the insurrectionists are being arrested.
AND they probably posted ALL those plans on social media, Anastasia. How thoughtful of them to provide everyone from the lowest DC beat cop to Spec Ops with such a gift. It’ll make neutralizing them MUCH easier.
Barron may take his mother’s maiden name.
Gee, isn’t that just too blinking bad? HAHA!
I’m sure Limbaugh’s involvement has NOTHING to do with him getting the ban hammer himself during the coup fallout. Where did you find that pic of Trump, BTW? It’s perfect, like a human zit ready to pop (RIP John Belushi, the greatest thing to ever come out of Albania).
Ursula you are correct about section 230, some form of reform of it has been needed for a long time! Hate speech, incitement to violence, and incitement to commit a crime or crimes are by definition NOT free speech! The RWNJs don’t seem to ever have understood that! They also don’t understand that free speech can have consequences. Trump and his cult being banned from online forums is a good start, but we also need them to be banned from all other media as well! Nutjobs like Limbaugh have been spewing hate speech, lies, and disinformation for far too long, and the armed insurrection attempt on Jan 6 2021 was the result. We can no longer allow the spewing of hate, lies and disinformation on any form of media!
I don’t know how this is going to get legislated but people are barking up the wrong tree about Section 230. That’s liability for what people post on your site. The real issue is to get some group of guidelines that sites would all agree to and that would include incitement of violence at the top. The internet is like the wild west. It’s a land of opportunity but it’s also wooly and wild and there need to be some rules or the outlaws run all over everybody.
I was so glad to see that. No more MSM breathlessly printing his every moronic brain-fart. Plus, it deprives him of the thing he most desires, attention. Now, with the exception of court appearances, he’ll be ignored. I couldn’t wish for a better ending. Plus section 230 is “baked into” the international trade agreement Trump signed, meaning the United States can’t unilaterally kill it. Sorry Miss Lindsey.
I’m curious as to who ‘the’ ayatollah is. Does Linseed Graham Cracker realise that it translates, roughly, as ‘the reverend’. From Miriam-Webster (and I’m being nice here and using a US dictionary) “Definition of ayatollah: a religious leader among Shiite Muslims —used as a title of respect especially for one who is not an imam”
It’s almost like Nancy Pelosi called Twitter and told them to take one for the team to distract Trump so that he was focused on nonsense and not doing actual damage to the agencies in these final days…
President Pelosi is good but she likely didn’t have to do a thing. Dorsey just took one look at the fallout and made the profitable decision.
The news of the Twitter ban did break within a short while of news of Pelosi securing the nuclear codes. I can say that, because I say it.
The damage is done.
The damage is done to Donald’s mind, that’s for damn sure. He went batshit when he was banned. The first thing he did was run to the White House Twitter feed — and then Dorsey deleted the tweets!! OMG, I would give anything to know what he said or did. If there is anybody with brains in the White House, they would have recorded his reaction because they could sell it. I would love to hear it.
Anyone in the White House with brains should have been gone a long time ago.
How can you damage something that was never there to begin with?
Ten final days.
We should start a big countdown. Today is TEN — or nine, because he’s leaving the 19th. But on the 20th at noon, it’s over, like the Roy Orbison song says.
Miz Lindsey is still smartin’ from dropping her lilac sachet, the only consolation she has for her vapors, after running screaming through Reagan Airport. Does anybody really care what she thinks?
I wrote a piece about that scene at Reagan Airport. I don’t feel bad for the Graham cracker. He did this to himself. He should have stayed buddies with Biden.
Please stop the misogyny or sex-orientation bashing! There are plenty of other ways to criticize Graham, other than by displaying your own prejudices. None of us need that!
You DO know why everyone brings it up, yes? He’s a hypocrite and he’s a weakling, something that would be true even if he were straight. And to watch someone THIS obviously gay side with a party leadership that would gladly annihilate the LGBTQ community is right up there with Jewish Stephen Miller’s Nazi ambitions. Hence the reminder by way of insult as they should have done with Grand Inquisitor Torquemada as he too tortured fellow Jews.
Personally, I always considered “bitch” a gender-neutral insult. And guys are always the worst of such. Lindsey more than qualifies for that one too.
This is what I don’t get about his obsession with “Section 230.” If it were eliminated, and social media companies were responsible for everything anyone posts, Trump would have been gone even faster. Every day he posted insults, attacks, slander, lies and goads to violence — all of which a huge number of people could have sued Twitter for. He seems to have this blind sport where he thinks this would only have applied to people attacking HIM but he was invulnerable. Just stupid.