The left-wing media has been busy of late, predicting Twitter’s death. After new owner Elon Musk, or as he styles himself, Chief Twit, restored the accounts of the formally banned — from Donald Trump to Libs of TikTok to the satiric Babylon Bee — these celebrity voices of hysteria melted down. A sampling of headlines:
“How to Prepare for Life After Twitter” — NYTimes
“Twitter Has 50% Chance of Major Crash During World Cup” — UK’s Guardian
“Twitter is Dying, and I Don’t Feel So Good Myself” — Vanity Fair
CBS was so sure the platform Musk has called “our digital town square” would collapse that it promised no longer to post on Twitter. Cue the laughing emoji. Within 48 hours, CBS was back. As a Brokeback Mountain meme hinted, Lefties are addicted.
For a long time, Twitter has served as their echo chamber — a place where they could marshal and deploy cancel mobs to destroy anyone who disagreed with their radical orthodoxy of child gender mutilation, CRT and abortion on demand. Also anyone who bucked the Far Left’s COVID mantra that “vaccines are safe and effective.” Tell it to the millions worldwide who have suffered serious injury or death after getting jabbed.
These Karens were so righteous in their anger that they are only happy when lives are destroyed. John Gibson took to Social Media to describe himself as “a pro-life gamer,” and they forced him from the company he co-founded and hounded him from the profession he loved. He contemplated suicide. Jennifer Sey, a 20-year executive at San Francisco-based Levi’s Jeans, resigned after the mob came for her. She had posted her opinion, as a mother of four, that closing public schools because of COVID would irreparably harm children. She relocated to Denver, where schools were open.
The Liberal Mob also had strict rules about anti-Semitism. If you were a liberal, like Rep Ilhan Omar, you could regularly spew accusations that Israel was a colonialist power repressing the rights of Palestinians. Que the Likes. But if you were a conservative, like Kanye (now Ye) West, who wondered why media companies were run by Jews, you and all conservatives were deemed white supremacists. Boos for you.
The idea that Elon Musk — a centrist who voted for Biden in 2020 and a businessman who pioneered electric cars at Tesla and space exploration at SpaceX — would seek an open flow of ideas on Twitter, free speech at its core, sent the Left into delirium.
Antifa radicals, those black-masked apostles of violence, threatened to firebomb Tesla dealerships in retaliation for Musk’s free-speech policy at Twitter. The European Union threatened to fine Musk’s Twitter daily for not imposing guardrails against anything they deemed “hate speech.” Musk responded by closing Twitter’s Brussels office. Sen Ed Markey (D-Mass) demanded answers from Musk about policing hate speech, wondering why he hadn’t responded. One twitter wag said, “Maybe he’s just not into you.” Alyssa Milano sold her Tesla for an electric VW — prompting a Twitter storm of reminders that Volkswagen, “the people’s wagon,” was founded in 1937, under the Nazi regime, and used forced labor to build its cars. Milano also vowed to leave Twitter, because, well, white supremacy or something. Two days later she was back, saying the Left can’t cede Twitter to the Right so she would valiantly start tweeting again. Like, for the cause. Probably she was one of those celebrities who vowed to move to Canada if Trump won the White House in 2016. Still waiting.
Without strict censorship of conservative ideas, they railed, the world would collapse.
“Putin is going to be all over Twitter if there’s no regulations on this,” said a CNN intel analyst named Bob Baer. “This freedom of speech is just nonsense.”
And there it is, a confession from the regime media that they only support free speech, only champion democracy, when it suits their political purposes. I wonder too if they realize on some level that they can’t win the argument in a free debate, so look to the White House to tip the scales. Asked by a left-wing Reuters reporter about concern that Twitter might now become a vector for misinformation, White House press secretary Karine Jane-Pierre said, “We are all keeping a close eye on this…Social media companies have a responsibility…(to police) misinformation.” Not your job.
For all the Left’s hysteria, Twitter seems to be thriving — daily tweet volume has increased since Musk’s purchase — and hate speech impressions are down.
But the Left is at its most skilled when it is losing the argument on points and so calls in its Social Media warlords — Google and Apple — to enforce autocratic policies. Apple threatened to de-platform Twitter, as it did Parler, vanishing it from the App Store. Musk said that if so, he will create his own smartphone, free of Big Tech censorship. Lovely to find someone willing to stand up to bullies. But that is a big ask. As for Google, just-disclosed court records show that the tech giant provided the FBI with cell-phone tracking on 1,535 devises being used on January 6 near the Capitol. Wired Magazine called it “a geo-fence dragnet.” Will Republicans finally fight back?
During the reign of the Twitter Mob, #Ukraine was one of the most popular hashtags, followed by barbs like #RussiaIsATerroristState. The topic wasn’t taboo — but the conversation was one-sided. You could report the suffering of the Ukraine people. You could portray Russia as an evil actor and President Vladimir Putin as a terrorist. You could definitely wave that yellow and blue Ukrainian flag. Heck, in some neighborhoods, digital and literal, it was more prevalent than the American one.
If, however, you suggested that Ukraine was corrupt, that its president Volod Zelensky was arrogant, if you wondered what national security interests required US armaments, if you questioned why the US was spending so much money — $66 billion so far, with another $37.3 billion contemplated by a lameduck Dem Congress — the Twitter Mob was quick to portray you as a traitor without a heart. Or a Kremlin asset.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Some called it an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict that began in 2014, abetted by the Obama administration. Others saw it as a violation of sovereignty, worthy of drawing a red line in the sand. Now, 10 months later, signs of dissent are appearing, prompting a debate in a digital space.
A German minister of the European Parliament charged western leaders with failing to pursue peace negotiations because they are misreading the conflict. “There is a lot of triumphalism right now, talk of Russia being pushed back to its pre-conflict borders,” Dr. Gunnar Beck, of the populist Alternative for Germany Party, told Breitbart. “I sense that it is a miscalculation.” With the legacy media in the West focusing on losses suffered by the Russians. In fact, he added, “Ukraine’s losses in manpower and equipment are much larger.” With millions and millions of Ukrainians leaving the country, and a large loss of life among Ukrainian men, “the country will be ruined if the conflict continues much longer.”
There is mounting anger in Europe over American subsidies that are making the United States “a fortune” from the Ukraine conflict, while EU countries and their citizens suffer. “They are selling more gas and at higher prices…and selling more weapons,” one senior official complained to Politico. Asked about this rising dissent that could fracture the alliance, even the EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, urged Washington to respond to Euro economic concerns. Putin has cut off energy exports to the rest of Europe, which has led EU countries to buy fuel from the U.S. at nearly four times the cost. As winter approaches, they are warning of a rift. Public opinion in Europe is shifting away from continuing the war, argue the critics, but the White House says the US will stay in Ukraine “as long as it takes.” It doesn’t help that the electric car tax credit for American companies included in President Biden’s $369 billion so-called Inflation Reduction Act put foreign manufacturers at a severe disadvantage.
House Republicans are warning the administration they plan to audit the billions of dollars sent by the US to Ukraine. “The American people deserve to know where their hard-earned tax dollars are going,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). “The American people are who we represent and I can tell you right now, my district … is not interested in continuing to fund a war in Ukraine and defending Ukraine’s border while our border is being invaded every single day.”
Musk himself has been a participant in the global effort to help Ukraine. His Starlink satellite-based terminals have been providing Internet service for the country for almost a year, what one Ukrainian official called “the signal of life.” Recently, Musk applied for funding from the Pentagon, saying Starlink cannot continue to supply Internet service for free indefinitely, as it “cost SpaceX $80 million and will exceed $100 million by the end of the year.” He has since withdrawn the request.
How rich.
The one man in the world who put his money where his heart was — Elon Musk, underwriting Ukraine’s access to the Internet to the tune of $100 million — is now a villain to the Ukrainian elite for wanting to open Twitter’s doors to dialogue.
Joe Biden loves this war. He can blame it for the high rise in gas prices caused by his killing the Keystone Pipeline on the first day of his presidency and his policy of killing fossil fuels. He can gorge European nations by selling them gas at inflated prices because Russian has cut them off. And he can provoke the Bear in Moscow, with such inflammatory statements as Putin “cannot remain in power.” The White House rushed to walk it back. Meanwhile policy analysts in Washington are talking about “fortified neutrality” for Ukraine, a way to prevent the world on the brink of war. No NATO membership, but independence guaranteed by all parties. Basically, an exit strategy.
I think it’s time we had that debate. Thanks, Elon, for giving us a place to talk.
Very good thorough article! It's so strange what is happening with this war. These "liberals" who've been whipped into war fever, in part I think as Tucker Carlson argued because the Russia collusion hoax situated Russia in the minds of so many Democratic voters as the epitome of evil. Yet I am convinced by the likes of such voices as John Mersheimer and Colonel McGregor that this war could and should have been avoided by simply accepting a neutral Ukraine, which Putin has been insisting upon for 14 years and which seems hardly an unreasonable demand, especially in the light of our own Monroe Doctrine policy. Biden has a lot of blood on his hands . . . essentially the destruction of an entire country. You detail some of his motivations in this regard . . . one that might be added is the glory Biden imagined for himself as the president who finally "got rid of Putin." Such a foreign policy "achievement," in Biden's mind at least, could have redeemed him from an otherwise disastrous presidency. I suggest that Ukraine is being sacrificed for this delusional egoistic gambit. Unless, of course Biden isn't really making any of these decisions at all, and this is all the consequence of Deep State department bureaucrats playing chess for their own egoistic purposes. In any case, this is pretty dark stuff. Yes, it would be nice if Elon's Twitter could facilitate some positive developments, but from what I am hearing and seeing, it's kind of too late at this point.
We live in dangerous times. There are only a few outlets and a few brave individuals that dare speak the truth. Among them I count Johanna Neuman. Thank you, Johanna for your bravery by speaking the truth! As for Elon Musk, I judge him by his actions not by what other people say about him. Likewise, Tulsi Gabbard ,now a Repubican, has demonstrated her beliefs by her actions. If either, Elon or Tulsi ultimately deceive us, then so be it....but until that time I think we owe them our support.