Good that social media finally silenced Trump
There is only one bit of socially redeeming value to Perry Foster’s tone-deaf defence of Donald Trump’s right to use social media to spew his racist, QAnon conspiracy rubbish from pure quackery regarding “cures” for COVID, to claiming with no evidence to back it that the election was stolen from him.
The one redeeming value is to show that the Repugnants are still defending Donald Trump and writing letters to the papers while abusing the right of freedom of expression as their cover.
His letter should be viewed as a wake-up call for everyone here that those forces that created Trump in the first place exist here, too. His letter should be viewed as a warning that we have to be on guard here when freedom of speech comes with no consequences when it incites violence as we all saw when the Capitol building was attacked by Trump’s delusional supporters.
Mr. Foster is quick to defend Trump’s freedom of speech, to decry those social media platforms that have become rich by catering to the worst in American society for now removing Trump’s access to the worst elements in American society. It didn’t matter to Facebook or Twitter before the attack on the Capitol building that to get their numbers up to attract ads to inflate their revenue, that neo-Nazis, anti-Semites, homophobic groups and individuals, deluded QAnon conspiracy twits living in their alternative reality, that out and out lies were all fun and games in making social platform owners richer than King Midas.
But now that the chickens have come home to roost, Mr. Foster is throwing a fit and defending Trump’s free speech and attacking social media platforms for finally showing some restraint in not allowing Trump to further rip the U.S. apart with his hate-filled rhetoric.
Largely through his influence using social media, Trump managed to unite diverse groups and individuals in what can only be called white Christian nationalism. The same kind of nationalism that allowed Hitler to gain power. Different leaders but the underlying dynamics are the same.
In inciting the attack on the Capitol building, Trump was hoping for a coup to keep himself in power. The attack on the Capitol building was no different than the attack on the German Reichstag by Hitler’s supporters.
The attempted coup was America’s nearly successful fascist overthrow of democracy. Lest we forget? Well, apparently far too many people did forget the lessons of WWII and let their guard down. What could you expect when they had a president who said that there are good people on both sides? No, good people aren’t neo-Nazis.
Yet Mr. Foster is defending Trump and wanting him to have access to social media to keep spewing out his garbage that his followers just eat up like it was mana from heaven. He wants there to be no consequences for Trump in fomenting the overthrow of American democracy. In Mr. Foster’s view, Trump should suffer no consequences.
Freedom of speech cannot be used to condone sedition, to further racial inequalities, to turn the States into a theocracy which was the ultimate goal of the white evangelicals who even now blame everyone but Trump and themselves for the assault on the heart of American democracy.
Trump used social media to stage a coup. That he failed was pure dumb luck. That so many Republicans are showing cowardice in wanting to give Trump a free pass means that the danger to democracy is not over. The Republican Party has truly become the party of QAnon.
It is right that the social media platforms are finally blocking Trump. I only wish that they had fact-checked him long ago as the damage that has now occurred will last for decades.
It is not the cancel culture, Mr. Foster. Nor was it Antifa that attacked the Capitol building, as I know that is a popular bit of disinformation that Trump’s right-wing sycophants are trying to peddle.
There’s still Fox & Friends providing a perverse form of comic relief in their unquestioning loyalty to the worst president the U.S. has ever had. That side still has its heroes, like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene to provoke Trump-style social violence. King Donald is dead, long live King Donald.
Robert T. Rock
Mission City