Trump World
Four events occurred in the past few days. The first, and most obscene, is the death of another black man at the hand (or knee) of a white man with “official” standing. It’s one of those things, like school shootings, that America seems to abhor, yet accept as “unsolvable”. I have already said a lot about these actions in the past weeks, and this new incident doesn’t change what needs to be done.
What I will note is this: maybe for the first time, the “blue wall” of support has cracked. Police officers aren’t immune to the depravity of some in their profession, but they are loath to discuss it. I understand that completely. When they are out in the field, they must be absolutely confident that their fellow officers have “their back”. It’s literally life and death. That confidence depends on supporting each other, regardless of personal likes and dislikes.
But the fastest way to change those few brutal outlier officers is from the inside. It’s not just “on” their coworkers, but it’s where change can begin.
Numbers
The second is the ongoing battle of numbers. We now find that some of the tests, the fifteen million that President Trump is so proud of, are about as accurate as flipping a coin. That allows everyone to simply ignore the most important number of the week: one hundred thousand dead from COVID-19 in the last four months. And there is no stopping this yet: it’s almost 102,000 as I write this essay. Like the school shootings, and like the death of black men, the numbers seem no longer shocking.
The third is positive: the United States is preparing to send humans back into space. I was waiting for that launch: it’s past time for an “uplifting” essay, and I am a huge proponent of space exploration. But, as we are discovering with a vengeance in our current world, nature controls us so much more than we control her. The rocket didn’t launch yesterday, thunderstorms lurked around Cape Canaveral making it far too dangerous. They will try again on Saturday. I look forward to writing about the United States in space on Sunday morning.
All of which leads us to today’s topic.
The First
“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…” – First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States
In school, teachers talk about the First Amendment as “the five freedoms:” religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition for redress of grievances. But the wording of the Constitution is more nuanced: it doesn’t really asset a “positive right”. What it does do is establish a boundary: Congress, representing the Federal government, shall make no law.
The First Amendment restricts the Government. It does not control what private individuals do. So for example, in New York City last week, a white woman was in Central Park, allowing her dog to run off-leash. A black man, in the Park bird watching, asked the woman to follow the “rules” and leash the dog. He recorded the ensuing discussion/argument on his cell phone. The woman responded by calling 9-11 and demanding that the police come and protect her from this “African American man ‘threatening’ the dog and her.”
White privilege and racism were loaded in all of her actions: thankfully the police came and defused the situation. No one was arrested or charged. When the video of her actions went viral, she was fired from her investment company job. Some claim that this is a violation of her First Amendment rights, including her “right” to be a bigot. But the investment company is not the Federal Government: it is a private corporation. The First Amendment does not circumscribe their actions.
There are many negative things to say about the President of the United States, Donald Trump. I’ve spent three years and three months composing the essays of Trump World, and many of them have criticized the President. This is my “right” under the First Amendment, and in spite of the concerns of some friends and relatives, some of them from outside of the United States, I haven’t had any “governmental” repercussions from speaking my mind.
But one positive thing can be said about Mr. Trump: he has found a new way to bypass the media and communicate with the American people. In the past, Presidents could either use the press, or use the “bully pulpit” of the White House and speak directly to the public. But President Trump has made it an “art form” to use social media, particularly Twitter, to reach Americans. He has 81 million Twitter followers, but his Tweets resonate far beyond them to the rest of us.
Rules
Twitter has a “community use” policy. There is a list of actions that are banned from the platform (Twitter):
- Threatening violence,
- Threatening or promoting terrorism,
- Child sexual exploitation,
- Promoting violence,
- Threatening or harassing someone based on race, ethnic origin, gender, etc.
- Suicide of self-harm,
- Graphic violence and adult content,
- Illegal or regulated goods.
Twitter is a publicly traded company, run by CEO Jack Dorsey. Like Facebook, Instagram, and other social media giants, Twitter is characterized as a “platform”. The concept is that they are simply a conduit for the sharing of information, and have little or no responsibility for what is shared. As a “platform” they are a “structure”, without an editorial position.
This allows them to avoid the strictures that broadcast media are required to follow through regulation by the Federal Communications Commission. And, they are corporations, not government entities. The First Amendment does not restrict them. In essence, they can make the rules for the use of their platform, if you don’t like their rules, don’t sign up for their platform.
Twitter regulates what its users say. Violate the “community standards” and Twitter punishes by restricting or banning use – “Twitter Jail”. But Twitter has determined that some chosen few Americans, including the President, are so “newsworthy” that no matter what they say they are exempted from the rules. They are given a “pass”: the fact that they bring millions of followers, and therefore income, to Twitter is beside the fact, supposedly.
The President
President Trump takes full advantage of his Twitter immunity. He says whatever comes to his mind, and whatever appeals to his diehard supporters. In the past week, the President has Tweeted about the dangers of mail-in voting, citing all of the “cheating and fraud” that occurs when ballots are cast by mail. It’s simply not true, and Twitter knows it. Rather than placing Mr. Trump in “jail”, they have determined to fact-check his Tweets, placing “the truth” under his Tweets to counter the fiction.
Mr. Trump doesn’t like to be corrected, and most certainly doesn’t want to be questioned on his favorite communication medium. So he is now threatening some kind of regulation over Twitter and the other social media platforms. He claims he has the First Amendment “right” to say what he wants on Twitter, and that their corrections are interfering in the 2020 Presidential election.
Executive Orders
So he’ll sign an Executive Order today. It will threaten Twitter and the rest, with the threat of regulation: a threat, of a threat.
His threat of regulation is another “paper tiger:” the President on his own cannot just create regulatory authority. It would require Congress to agree, and would then surely be tested in Court against the First Amendment. But that’s not what Mr. Trump really wants to do. He’s simply firing a “warning shot” at Jack Dorsey and Twitter world, the same shot he’s been firing at Fox News. He’s saying, “If you don’t back me, I’ll take my millions of followers and go somewhere else”. The problem the President has in both cases, is that the alternative platforms aren’t nearly as broadly viewed.
But it might well work. It’s 2020: Twitter, and more importantly Facebook, look to the Trump Campaign for many ten of millions of advertising dollars in the next few months. So don’t count on any of them putting the President in “jail”, even if he makes up a conspiracy about an opposing news personality committing murder. It’s not about freedom of speech; it’s about cash on the barrel.
