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Saturday, January 9, 2021

The Night of the Long Bans

 

Yesterday not only was Trump kicked off Twitter "for good" (we'll see--but probably) but TrumpTeam was evicted. YouTube kicked TheWarRoom (Trump media with Steve Bannon as a host), and a bunch of high profile QAnon people got the boot.

It's tempting to suggest that this is just a reaction to the Capitol raid and the sudden "Crash" in Trump's social and political currency--but there's a darker possibility:


Stop The Steal organized on Facebook for 48 hours growing at a semi-exponential rate before FB saw it and killed it. Social Media probably doesn't want to own an organized insurrection that is, again, being promoted by the President of the United States. Trump, although isolated and weakened is still the most powerful individual in the country and it doesn't take him long to disavow any calls for peace and sanity (about 48 hours, historically).

The banning of the QAnon promoters is required as well since they would be channels for a second attempt--one that would almost certainly be far more serious. The militia movements--both those involved in the 6th and those watching--have veterans and are more heavily armed and trained than QAnon or the standard MAGA.

The right's outcry has been intense: It's CANCEL CULTURE! Rod Dreher, the guy who perpetually almost gets it thinks that The Left and their toadies in Big Tech and Teh [sic] Media are just waiting to use Trump's attempted coup to demonize conservatives.

Why, how could THAT work? Rod can't come to grips with the fact that these guys are essentially self-demonizing: it doesn't take a woke collusion to determine that a mob storming the United State's seat of legislative power is bad and reflects something that no one should want to be associated with.

Even Axe Body Spray distanced itself from what is undoubtedly part of its core audience. Rod should know that when you have lost Axe you have lost America. At least a MAGish part of it.

And justifiably so. People are calling for Pence's execution--people who could do it if they got their hands on him. This isn't quite over and it isn't safe: we are going through critical straits here it isn't a "woke mob" cancelling Donald: it's the host organism trying to fight off a fatal disease.

It's also funny. Deplatforming is, again, and this is really important, a humiliation. It hurts in psychological places that weaken the target. It's important to make sure that Trumpers understand that they are, now, targets of mockery and derision--not abused patriots or people pushed back against the wall by the Teh [sic] Forces of the Left.

No, from 2015 Trump made it clear he wouldn't accept the losing an election and that didn't change through his four years in office. The assault on the Capitol was planned in plain sight and very clear language. None of this--not any of it--was surprising or out of character or anything. It's a case of getting what you paid for and then being really upset about it.

* The term The Night of the Long Bans was seen on Twitter--but The Omnivore can't find it now.

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