The President Is Not Above Us
As of now, I have written nothing regarding Twitter’s choice to suspend Donald Trump’s account as well as the accounts of many other administration officials. However, one thing that quickly enraged me was the amount of people who seemed to believe the President should simply be above the rules wherever he goes. While I could not re-find the tweets, I recall seeing some refer to a sitting President not being on Twitter (as 43 other Presidents weren’t) being called a “coup” and other such nonsense terms. As Minty Root put in on 1/9/2021:
So, let me get this straight, breaking into the capitol with weapons and zip ties for kidnapping people in order to overthrow an election is not a coup, but banning someone from Twitter is?
As it stands, my biggest criticism with what Twitter did was just how arbitrary it was. Trump did not get suddenly nasty just before the ban — albeit his supporters certainly did — he had always been just as nasty as we was in the aftermath of the 2020 election. If Twitter truly cared about Trump’s rule breaking, they would have banned his account years ago — long before he even ran for President, let alone after his campaign.
Of course, you cannot reason with unreasonable people, and now Twitter doing the bare minimum after our capital is swarmed is an injustice that must be legislated against. Twitter must now be forced to become a publisher, and when a publisher, such as Simon and Schuster, reject a book from Senator Hawley they must act like platforms.
Seriously, that was what Josh Hawley argued when Simon and Schuster cancelled his book deal. Here’s what he wrote:
Le me be clear, this is not just a contract dispute. It’s a direct assault on the First Amendment. Only approved speech can be published. This is the Left looking to cancel everyone they don’t approve of.
Of course, I’m sure the small right-wing publishers would love to have a book by a sitting US Senator to their name, but what do you expect from Josh? Things must always be as easy as possible when it comes to getting his message out their, and anything less than full complacence is censorship according to him. Questioning him is also likely to soon become censorship, as will be resisting the orders placed by him. I find it funny these people say libertarians would be willing to go to Amazon gulags when many of these people would shoot themselves if Josh Hawley called it in the common good.
However, here is something that is being forgotten, Trump is not above us when it comes to being on other peoples websites. You are allowed to ban politicians from your property (Watergate was burglary, remember) and there is nothing they can do about it. Basically, if Twitter has terms of service that allows them to ban one person, they are therefore allowed to ban Donald Trump, just as Gab and Parler could ban Joe Biden.
With that said, this should be a two-way street, meaning courts do have it wrong when they rule, as they have in the past, that Donald Trump is not allowed to block his critics. He is allowed to block his critics, just as his critics are allowed to block him. For that matter, if you block a government agency on Twitter, they should be required to get a warrant before they investigate your Twitter content — but that’s a topic for another time.
Mind you, I do understand the complaints about Twitter acting inconsistently — because I firmly believe it has been. However, the outrage over the idea that Twitter can ban politicians shows a major issue with the country: The idea that their are elites who are just above the law and who we must listen to under all circumstances. This is something that, under any other circumstances, the American people see as an issue, but no, now all of a sudden the issue is that our elite isn’t elite enough. The issue is, yes, there are some rules that they have to follow.
