The idea that it was a difficult or hard to predict decision to keep Donald Trump off Facebook is indicative of a problem that liberals (and everyone else, really) have when dealing with the lingering nonsense he provides: this isn't hard, we know we're right and let's just keep him away from having the chance to repeat the nightmare we lived from 2016 to 2020.
Who cares if Republicans are so internally broken as the last gasp of a political party that they can't extricate themselves from his malign influence? Who cares if "his base" must be catered to by fearful politicians bereft of ideas or independent thoughts? Why should we pay an attention to his ridiculous website, a desperate plea for relevance where he continues to blather away his incomprehensible mix of self aggrandizement, endless animus and fear of irrelevance?
We owe him nothing.
Democrats, I swear, know this. on good days, we respond calmly and confidently to the remaining nonsense, clear in our understanding that we're right, he's wrong, and his sycophants are a minority voice that should be ignored (or in the case of his riotous mob, tried and imprisoned). We won the presidency, held a house majority and regained control of the Senate because his lies, malfeasance and corruption were simply unbearable.
But still, like the post divorce remnants of a dysfunctional marriage, the bad man still has the power to undermine that confidence at the oddest moments. "What if he gets back on Facebook?" fretted media types. Kara Swisher - in what was surely the most embarrassing moment she's ever had and I've ever seen Maddow cater to - asserted, literally absent any relevant fact, that his return was all but a certainty (which she, quite soundly, had to retract the next morning). Even now, reporters bring up gloomy, doom filled predictions that all is lost in 2022 elections because a handful of democrats are considering running for different offices, and one woman (Cheri Bustos) has decided to retire (from, it should be noted, what is widely considered a safe seat). Because, of course... how can we possibly feel good, even for a moment, that the worst is over?
Look, I get it. Redistricting will be tough and nothing is certain. But still. Even the initial census results were hardly the bloodbath that had been foreordained, and indeed, the census, while troubled with pandemic issues, looks like a reasonably on track demographic assessment of the nation as a whole. Trump is spending time largely feeling sorry for himself, playing golf, puttering around his overpriced and ridiculous mansion cum private club, preparing to plop himself down into similarly cosseted digs in mid New Jersey, all the while whining about feeling hard done by. And sure, ambitious Republicans with no shame and less sense are catering to his whims and flying to his side to kiss the ring... but nothing, really nothing, suggests that this bowing and scraping is doing more than feeding Trump's foolish ego and putting the entire party on a crash course to oblivion.
Take Liz Cheney - or as Kevin McCarthy would add, "please." Cheney's principled and genuinely honorable insistence on speaking truth to foolishness may well kill her current chances at moving upward, but she has a point: perpetuating Trump's "Big Lie" about the election, trying to use falsehoods about made up frauds and ballot box stuffing will only damage the credibility of individuals and the group as a whole. Even now, Trump is braying from his little corner of the internet (anyone can make a website) his string of lies and misinformation of imaginary election issues. And trying to ignore the Trump in the room and run the usual ugly oppositional efforts to destroy Dem chances is unlikely to gather much traction either while Mr. Country Club can up-end the conversation with a few words. McConnell was, and remains, right in his end of term assessment: either Trump is removed from future influence, or Republicans have a problem. And he's their problem. Not ours.
I'm not saying that the Facebook - or the Oversight Board, if that's what you want, Mark - decision isn't news or a topic to discuss. It's more how we discuss it than the fact we discuss it at all. If we are done with Trump - and we are, not just "Lord knows we should be" - then let's be done. Let's be clear that he has no place in the national discourse. Let's remind ourselves, consistently and explicitly, that he continues to lie, misrepresent and insult everything that is worthy or worth holding onto in our serious discussions of national governance. Let us be clear what his sycophants, and parrots, and media enablers are, and how they should be treated - as the facilitators and enablers of damaging lies and destructive elements to our body politic. This isn't war, conservatives are not the enemy. But Donald Trump is a malignant, dangerous force against our democracy, and we calmly, and confidently, repudiate him, his followers, and all that he stands for.
This isn't hard. And we're not wrong. And there's no need for doubt or fear. We get this. Facebook gets this. Twitter gets this. Let's act like the fact that we get this means we know what we're doing. Because we do. And he is done.
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