Because of the weakness of their justification, this could be further gasoline on the fire for his 74 million supporters. I frequently find myself having to argue with said supporters, and I can't argue that this justification makes sense other than to say... well they should have banned him before hand.
It feels like they were looking for almost anything remotely shitty that Trump said to ban him. More specifically, they are looking for a reason to ban him based on saying anything not in support of the next administration, because of his supporters storming the capital. I can see the chain of logic here, I just think it's a little weak and being selectively enforced.
Edited: to make more sense hopefully.
This is reducing repeat ignition and stilling winds fanning flames.
See Chamberlain on the effectiveness of appeasement.
However, mostly it’s based on party affiliation where people voting against him in a primary would vote for him in a general election.
"I do not support this man but I did want him to be President, and cast my ballot for him" is a concept I can't understand at least.
When you have such a limited number of options their isn’t an obvious reason for the choice. Both loving A or hating B more than you hate A can result in an A vote. With millions of voters some people are going to vote based on silly crap like a candidates name being similar to someone they know, or a coin flip. Hell, you can expect at least a few mistakes.
PS: 1,865,620 people voted libertarian, presumably a few felt the way you do but when you know someone isn’t getting elected that opens up even more options.
To kind of latch onto what you said, I'd say that there is 60% of those 74 million who would have benefited from a Twitter ban which was well justified. They are more on the fence and can be persuaded by the tides of big business and what seems like an over reaction on their part. The 40% are probably hopelessly convinced of anything that Republicans say.
So if you are still a “Trump supporter” at this point, I really don’t see how you can also say you “condemn what happened in the capitol”. Because Trump didn’t.
I’ve told all of my maga friends Trump is a clown all along. But again the left really didn’t have any issues with riots this summer and now everyone’s clutching their pearls.
I'm basically saying, it's a whole lot easier to be "brave" and deal a blow to a lame duck than a live tiger.
you can try telling that to the 5 dead people from the sacking of the Capitol I guess
This describes the past half-year in Portland, Seattle, and more sporadically in many other cities.
I believe that no accounts on the Left: organizing, not merely advocating - have been permanently shut down.
So, I'm very skeptical that anything legitimate has changed. It feels very political.
My guess is that we are quickly approaching a point in time when culture will start to swing the other way, and the internet will become this thing that people don't take seriously, haha much like it was in the 90s. That, and some combination of that and censorship. And the tech monopolies absolutely will not survive the level of influence they have now, even if they think they are playing it safe by supporting a particular political faction which happens to be popular at the moment. I think things are going to change fairly rapidly in this direction because it turns out being connected constantly is actually pretty awful in most of the ways that count. Thankfully, however, it seems most folks understand this in a kind of unspoken, visceral way. The same sort of "self-policing" feeling you get when you've wasted 12 hours straight playing Skyrim. It just feels dirty.
I hope you’re right but I have my doubts. Currently I see the left waging total war when it comes to censorship and control of allowed/disallowed speech. Their consolidation of power and influence (and their attack on foundations like free speech principles) has been rapid, and pervasive. When I look at the left trying to inject things like the factually incorrect “1619 Project” into schools, I see them trying to make their temporary power gains permanent by propagandizing, so that there is no avenue by which different thought can enter the Overton window.
Maybe I’m being overly cynical but I don’t see a way back from this. I foresee an increasing amount of leftist authoritarianism as the future of the US, because there won’t be a balancing politic on the other side to moderate us.
Previously theoretic risks are now manifest, demonstrated, and cognizable.
Actual riots, insurrection, disruption of government, assaults on law enforcement, damage to government buildings, theft of government property, violence, and deaths, have occurred.
The instigator is unrepentent and non-credible in what are at best tepid disavowals.
The totality of context has changed. If "he has tweeted worse things in the past", the undeniable impact is abundantly clear.
The ban is absolutely warranted. If anything, it is many years too late.
Twitter specifically address these points:
Due to the ongoing tensions in the United States, and an uptick in the global conversation in regards to the people who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, these two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks. After assessing the language in these Tweets against our Glorification of Violence policy, we have determined that these Tweets are in violation of the Glorification of Violence Policy and the user @realDonaldTrump should be immediately permanently suspended from the service.
From TFA