The answer is simple. Democrats are as hooked on Twitter as teenagers are on TikTok.
Musk is Trolling Democrats
Put another way, Democrats sticking with Musk is like Republicans sticking with Trump. That might be a more apples-to-apples comparison.
Democrats spent years denouncing Republicans for sticking with Donald Trump. Republicans were only interested in the primary votes and fundraising dollars. Trump’s dystopian MAGA supporters are indispensable in both respects. So the fate of democracy, or even the welfare of the country, be damned.
Now Democrats are only interested in social-media followers (bots and all). Musk’s dystopian Twitter users are indispensable in this respect. The fate of civilized public debate, or even curbing the spread of hate, be damned.
Twitter is too toxic
Twitter has become a racist, homophobic, antisemitic, dystopian hellscape. That has proved too toxic for entertainers like Elton John. They quit.
Yet politicians like President Joe Biden are still on Twitter. That cannot bode well for our democratic republic. After all, only the triumph of Trumpian narcissism over political principles explains their failure to quit.
From day one, Musk telegraphed his intent to turn Twitter into little more than a platform to display his narcissism and vent his grievances.
Sure enough, he has become to business what Trump is to politics. That, of course, is a narcissistic, bullying, gaslighting, incompetent, hypocritical, trolling, thin-skinned buffoon. But nobody should be surprised.
It should have been telling enough when he named himself chief twit. But he betrayed his intent by urging all Americans to vote for the Republican Party.
After all, he promised to strip Twitter of all political bias. Yet he doubled down by propagating Republican talking points. Most notably, Musk championed calls to investigate the hedonistic and drug-fueled life of Biden’s son Hunter. But he did not post a tweet about the corrupt business dealings of Trump’s son-in-law Jared.
Musk claims that Twitter’s “secret archives” revealed “bombshells.” But they only affirmed what Hunter revealed in his memoir, Beautiful Things. That’s why Musk’s overhyped revelations revealed more about him than Hunter. Hunter’s infamous laptop contains lots of prurient interest but nothing of public interest. The DOJ confirmed this long ago.
Why Musk fired so many employees
Musk shocked everyone when he fired the entire curation team. After all, this team was combating misinformation and hate on the platform. But Musk spreads more misinformation and hate than most people on social media. So nobody should have been shocked.
For example, he called for the DOJ to arrest Dr. Anthony Fauci. But Fauci’s only crime was undermining Trump’s plan to have Americans ingest bleach to treat Covid.
Of course, Musk promoted himself as a free-speech absolutist. Yet he’s forcing Twitter employees to sign hush-money NDAs. He’s even threatening to sue any employee who “leaks” information to the free press.
He’s now compounding this hypocrisy with betrayal by canceling his BFF Kanye West. West tweeted antisemitic bile, including ranting about his love for Adolf Hitler. That turned out to be a red line for Musk.
Except I’d be remiss not to note that many CEOs canceled Kanye. That has him moaning about free speech costing him $2 billion in one day.
These same CEOs had no problem when this same West tweeted racist bile, including ranting about slavery being a choice. So they were happy to do business with the self-hating racist Kanye. But their redline was doing business with the Hitler-loving antisemitic Kanye. Think about that, folks.
Do the right thing, Joe
Again, Twitter has become a hate-mongering, lie-peddling, conspiracy-propagating hellscape. And its chief twit revels in trolling Democrats. So the question is why Biden hasn’t led Democrats in quitting Twitter. Their willingness to have Musk troll them even inspired a report on NBC News on Sunday under the headline:
- Why liberal Washington can’t quit Twitter: They may hate Elon Musk, but they’re not leaving Twitter yet. “You will have to pry my fingers from my phone.”
As indicated, the social truth is that they are all hooked.
Nonetheless, I am obliged to reiterate my call for Biden to publish a farewell tweet ASAP. He should cite concerns the FTC raised for believing Twitter is no longer a safe public communication platform. Instead, he should provide links to the White House and Federal Register.