Republicans and their Russian bankrollers + bedfellows are at it again, and I’m deeply alarmed that most Democrats don’t see the obvious and dangerous trap they’re laying.
Let’s be clear, Republicans, drunk on pushing anti-democracy Christian-nationalist, authoritarianism, are leading the charge to destroy, dismantle, fire-sale TikTok. The scare-tactic propaganda Republicans are spreading (that Democrats are blindly gobbling up) is “the Chinese Government is going to use TikTok to influence the 2024 elections”! Oh, and “your personal data is at risk”.
It’s a five alarm fire! Let’s convince the Democrats and Biden to quickly pass some sloppy, shady, vague legislation to force TikTok to have mere months to sell to an unknown US billionaire (likely a Republican and Russian ally) before the election in November or be shut down.
Hurry! This is an emergency like none other before! A government report says TikTok is dangerous! Republicans say that TikTok is far more dangerous than trusted American companies of Facebook, Meta, or Twitter. Hurry! No time to waste. Republicans say we must pass this law immediately! The Chinese communists are on the march via TikTok. USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!
Well, wait one damn minute.
Let’s take a few steps back, calm down, to look rationally and objectively look at the situation.
1. Never trust Republicans.
2. Never trust the Russians.
3. We know that Republicans and the Russians have been in collusion since the 2016 election.
We know that Russians are deeply invested in Trump winning the 2024 election. They worked closely and openly with Republicans to install Trump in 2016 using Facebook and all their Russian bot farms.
If we as a nation are truly concerned about “foreign adversaries meddling in and influencing our elections” why didn’t we force the sale of Facebook and Meta? Why aren’t we concerned about a South African billionaire using Saudi cash to buy Twitter and turn it into a right-wing cesspool?
4. Never trust the billionaires, particularly the right-wing billionaires.
Why aren’t we noticing that Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is annoyed that Amazon online sales are trending down as TikTok shop online sales are skyrocketing. Oh, he’s not happy with the competition?
Why aren’t we noticing that with 170 million American users on TikTok, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk aren’t happy with the social media competition?
Why aren’t we noticing who has been lobbying US Congress about the scary, bad, Chinese TikTok? It’s been Zuckerberg, Musk, Bezos friendly lobbyists who are also leaning into anti-Chinese racism.
5. What would happen if Republicans (and their Russian and billionaire backers) convince enough Democrats and President Biden to pass and sign some bogus legislation to disrupt or destroy TikTok prior to the November 5th elections?
All will be lost. Democrats will lose the elections badly and hand over everything to Republicans. There will be 170,000,000 Americans and 7,000,000 small businesses on TikTok who would be pissed off and blame the Democrats, not the Republicans, but blame the Democrats for destroying their beloved TikTok ecosystem. Republicans cannot win on policy so all they have is fear-mongering and getting Democrats to panic and make stupid mistakes.
We can’t let Republicans get away with this scheme. Democrats cannot be so naïve to fall for and walk right into this obvious trap Republicans, the Russians, and their US billionaire friends have set.
Solution:
All we need to do is to convince our Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to slow-roll, stonewall, delay bringing this legislation up for any votes. Don’t put it on the schedule but instead, set up a committee to begin a six month study on the Constitutionality of the US Government forcing the sale of a social media company. Passing this law is in fact censorship and against freedom, is it constitutional? Let’s take a long time to study that.
Create a special Senate Committee take a very long and lengthy approach of writing a far better, more reasonable, more equitable bill that addresses social media safety, data privacy, national security, and disinformation as a whole industry rather than targeting a single app.
Do we need legislation to protect our national security and data privacy? Yes. But not legislation that is written and lead in bad faith by Republicans who are openly doing Putin’s bidding.
Democrats need to be smart enough to see what Republicans are doing, and be clever and strategic enough to out maneuver them, delaying any action on TikTok until next year.
Action Item:
Please call your two US Senators, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to kindly ask them delay and drag out this TikTok scheme the way Trump is dragging out all his court cases. Ask them not to fall for the obvious trap Republicans and Russians have set for Democrats.
US Capitol Switchboard 202-224-3121