Twitter the Tyrant

When Laura Loomer won the Republican primary in President Trump’s voting district, I said Twitter would have to respond; it couldn’t do nothing. Twitter has responded. It will not let Miss Loomer back on. She criticized Islam and Ilhan Omar, and that is apparently not allowed. We don’t know for sure, because the guidelines are so arbitrary.

Laura Loomer with a supporter. (Credit Image: LauraLoomerForCongress.com)

Twitter’s action was remarkable show of power over Donald Trump and Republicans. The company can interfere in elections and Republicans won’t do anything. The GOP’s capitulation is humiliating. However, Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey (@jack) went further. He recently gave $10 million to Dr. Ibram Kendi and the Center for Antiracist Research.

Dr. Kendi’s book, How To Be An Antiracist, is #20 on Amazon’s bestseller list, a decline from earlier this year, when he was vying for the top spot. He also modestly claims to have written “The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” called Stamped from the Beginning. He, along with Robin DiAngelo, has had a very profitable year. Unlike Miss DiAngelo, Dr. Kendi isn’t just a consultant. He wants an “Anti-Racist Constitutional Amendment.”

Dr. Kendi:

To fix the original sin of racism, Americans should pass an anti-racist amendment to the U.S. Constitution that enshrines two guiding anti-racist principals: Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy and the different racial groups are equals. The amendment would make unconstitutional racial inequity over a certain threshold, as well as racist ideas by public officials (with “racist ideas” and “public official” clearly defined). It would establish and permanently fund the Department of Anti-racism (DOA) comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees. The DOA would be responsible for preclearing all local, state and federal public policies to ensure they won’t yield racial inequity, monitor those policies, investigate private racist policies when racial inequity surfaces, and monitor public officials for expressions of racist ideas. The DOA would be empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas.

Consider the implications. First, it simply declares, using the religious language of “sin,” that racial inequity is evidence of racist policy, and different racial groups are equal. An enormous amount of evidence suggests otherwise. Such an amendment would justify virtually unlimited government intervention. Test score gaps, wealth inequality, differences in lifespans, and everything else you can imagine could potentially justify criminal investigations. The federal government would be at war with nature.

Dr. Ibram X. Kendi (Credit Image: Montclair Film via Wikimedia)

Who would determine what’s racist and what’s not? “Experts” from a permanently funded Department of Anti-Racism. These experts would naturally discover ever more racism to justify their existence and their budget. There would be endless investigations into “private racist policies when racial inequity surfaces,” because inequality is a fact. Unelected bureaucrats would have “disciplinary tools” to “wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas.” Americans couldn’t even elect politicians to oppose forced egalitarianism.

Dr. Kendi supports defunding police, so it’s not clear who would enforce his proposed police state. He would change the Constitution from the people’s shield into the government’s sword, a weapon for imposing anarcho-tyranny. Americans have a moral obligation to revolt against any system that imposes anything like this. Ironically, the best way to avoid falling under the DoA’s brief would be to avoid non-whites altogether and the possibility of “inequities.” Dr. Kendi’s amendments justify white nationalism.

Of course, most whites would shrink from radical solutions. They might try to use the amendment for their own interests. If all groups are equal and any inequity means racism, whites could conceivably appeal to the DoA. There aren’t enough whites in some professional sports. Asians get better grades. Whites are underrepresented in government jobs. In a review of Dr. Kendi’s work, City Journal said that Nigerian-Americans massively out-earn Haitian-Americans. Does American society discriminate against Haitians, but not Nigerians?

Every possible identity group would look for evidence of “inequity” so it could receive government payouts or have the state crush its perceived enemies. New groups would be invented. The amendment would rip society apart.

Can these disparities be explained by racism? Should the government step in? (Credit Image: Roberto A. Ferdman / The Washington Post)

It’s doubtful such an amendment will pass or be introduced, even if the Democrats win a crushing victory. However, we shouldn’t ignore this lunacy. Dr. Kendi enjoys massive institutional support, including praise from the New York Times Book Review, Time, NPR, the Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, and other publications. He just received $10 million from a man who won’t allow us to have a Twitter account. The System’s support for Dr. Kendi refutes his entire theory about white supremacy.

Nonetheless, such absurdities have never stopped our opponents. The “slippery slope” may be a logical fallacy but it is still a useful description of American politics. We’ve fallen far in just the last six months. Where will we be in six years? I question whether Mount Rushmore will still exist, let alone the First Amendment.

President Trump and Republicans won’t stop this decline. What can stop Dr. Kendi and those like him are Americans creating their own movement. However, that’s hard to do when they can’t organize online or promote their message. This makes Twitter’s censorship especially ominous. It’s not hard to find anti-white hatred on Twitter, but the GOP nominee in President Trump’s own district can’t even have an account. This isn’t just “election interference.” It renders self-government meaningless, because those like Mr. Dorsey determine what voters see and hear.

Conservatives should be making a huge stink about this. They should use state power against Twitter while they still can. They should denounce elite institutions supporting extremist, tyrannical proposals. Instead, some conservatives seem more concerned about QAnon, the harmless conspiracy theory that, if anything, encourages complacency and the wait for a savior.

• House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — “There is no place for QAnon in the Republican Party.”
• Rep. Liz Cheney — “QAnon is a dangerous lunacy that has no place in American politics.”
• Senator Ben Sasse — “Q-Anon is nuts — and real leaders call conspiracy theories conspiracy theories.”

QAnon is not the conspiracy theory that dominates American politics. “White privilege” is, but Republicans won’t oppose it. They won’t protect their supporters — or even their candidates — from being censored. They are asleep while their enemies lead us into despotism. Twitter just called the Republicans’ bluff, and almost all of them showed their bellies. How much longer will we?