Mad King Donald Trump Looks Up and Sees the Walls Closing In
The Donald Trump tweet that best encapsulates his confused desperation in finally having to face reality is without doubt this one, from 10:35 a.m on Wednesday:
After those five frantic, all-capped words, there’s a note from Twitter that “Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process,” and if you “click to learn more” you are directed to the company’s “civic integrity policy,” which opens with: “You may not use Twitter’s services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes.” (If you instead click “view” to see the tweet Trump’s quoting, it’s a plugged-up rabbit hole about supposed election fraud, leading to a tweet quote-tweeting another, since removed, tweet.)
Twitter probably could have blocked about 73.6 percent of Trump’s tweets from the last four years under this policy, but it put the hammer down now, and it put it down now for the same reason that Mitch McConnell and Chris Christie and Scott Walker and others are starting to jump ship. A very simple and straightforward reason that apparently almost everybody, to my surprised relief, endorses: You have to count the votes.