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Trump is calling for the arrest and trial of six Democrat lawmakers who posted a video telling the intelligence community not to follow unlawful orders,. The video claims that the current administration is threatening democracy and the constitution, and that the military "must refuse illegal orders."
Trump also apparently had another post that just said, "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH."
This is the first time I have genuinely increased the probability of a real civil war breaking out, this is an absolutely terrifying escalation by both sides. While the Democrats were hinting extremely obviously that the military / intelligence community should basically pull off a coup, I also think that Trump hinting back that they should be executed is way beyond the pale.
Hopefully we're still in nothing ever happens land? I for one do not want to live through a civil war.
This is stupid. I hate that a stitched-together video is what passes for an official statement. I hate that Twitter is the de facto source for partisan drama. And Libs of fucking TikTok, no less! I don’t want to watch this slop.
I wonder if elected officials could be banned from social media. Let them appear on TV or release a boring document if they want to puff up their feathers. It’d greatly improve faith in the political process. Make it take more work to bait outrage.
You’d probably just end up with a secondary industry of ghouls like LoTT laundering those official appearances into an allegedly unofficial party line. But I genuinely think our politics would be improved if seated politicians had to put a little more effort into public appearances.
There are a few court cases now suggesting that elected officials don't have (on their bon-personal accounts?) the right to block people on social media. I think you'd need to go fishing for a precedent that this encompasses chosing platforms that "block people" in the same ways. Which doesn't sound completely crazy: Trump blocking people on Twitter and getting Truth Social as a platform to ban people (also blocking them from sending DMs) both limit contact with public officials.
On the other hand, if you go too far in that precedent you'll block politicians from email spam filtering (I was trying to petition my elected leadership to help me save this member of Nigerian royalty!) or attending events in any access-controlled spaces.
No, I want the opposite! Everyone else should automatically block politicians. No POTUS Twitter account, no Senators chasing TikTok trends. Think of how much cringe we could avoid.
Holding office should constrain you to official channels, which should be both boring and delayed. If the leader of the free world needs to address the population, he can damn well set up a press conference.
If Congressmen weren’t allowed to broadcast their reelection propaganda like this, nothing of value would be lost.
The problem with this is that it allows politicians to be held hostage by the official communications apparatus. Have you ever watched Yes Minister? Politicians become actors whose only job is to say the lines they're given in the right order, and to take the blame when the Civil Service wishes to assign it to them.
Like it or not, Congressmen need to get reelected and are therefore dependent on comms. The only question IMO is whether you want the propaganda to at least be written (sometimes) and signed off on by the politicians themselves, or whether you want your representatives to be unable to speak except when the bureaucrats arrange and opportunity for them to do so.
To be perfectly honest, I do not think that truly boring politics is compatible with democracy. Japan tends to have boring politics but a) there's a certain amount of grassroots turmoil these days and b) Japan somewhat resembles China in that almost all important debate takes place within a single ruling party.
Hm. Maybe we shouldn’t try to drift towards the UK.
And Japan has had its fair share of unhinged opposition.
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