The very offline President
Joe Biden has no idea what's happening on the internet, and Thank God for that.
I’ve never hesitated to criticize President Biden when I felt he’s deserved it, and yet I can’t help liking the guy. And this incident from just before last Christmas illustrates why:
The “Let’s Go Brandon” phenomenon had been around for a while, yet the President apparently knew nothing about it, to the point where he even told the caller he agreed with it.
And I’ll bet that’s something he had in common with the overwhelming majority of Americans, who don’t spend every waking minute on social media. It’s almost like the guy was, I dunno, working or something.
Fast forward a year, and Elon Musk’s transition from tech visionary to full-time shitposter dominates the conversation on Twitter - and on Mastodon, where people who’d fled Twitter in protest have moved, at least until they realize Mastodon is completely incomprehensible and slink back to Twitter in the hopes no one will notice.
According to Semafor, Biden’s opinion about Musk taking over Twitter is…well, he doesn’t really have one:
Biden’s team seems to view the battle over moderation at Twitter as a matter of some concern — like, say, a big fire in California or the political crisis in Peru — but not something that’s exactly their problem.
The administration does not consider Twitter a vital part of any political strategy that reaches beyond the chattering classes. One former White House official told Semafor the platform is an “afterthought” in communications and press meetings, which tend to focus first on television and traditional media and on Facebook, a declining service that still reaches a mass audience.
It’s a stark contrast with President Donald Trump, who early this year sued the platform for removing him, comparing the ban to the Catholic Church’s silencing of the astronomer Galileo. As then-White House Press Secretary Jenn Psaki once put it: “I think it's safe to say that the president spends a lot less time obsessing over social media than the former president.”
The disdain for Twitter inside the White House has little to do with right-wing control of the platform, and more to do with its role inside the Democratic Party: Biden’s wing sees Twitter as fuel for activist voices who push ingroup thinking, left-of-center bias, and socioeconomic bias.
When Biden ran for president in 2016, his staff’s mantra was “Twitter isn’t real life.” Now, aides point to data from The New York Times suggesting that Democrats are “more moderate, more diverse and less educated” than those on the social media platform.
Some members of Biden’s administration, and many of his supporters, seem to spend every waking moment on Twitter. But not Biden himself, whose official account is only updated a couple of times per day, most likely by a social media intern.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way. That 2016 mantra was exactly right: the most extreme and ideological voices in both parties and beyond dominate the conversation on that platform, to the point where it can lead those who get most of their news from Twitter to overlook just how politically moderate most Americans really are.
For all the stereotypes about extremely, obsessively online leftists - certainly not unfounded - its the right which has most recently marched confidently into the glue trap of believing that Twitter is indeed real life. I was worried heading into the most recent midterm elections because of social media predictions that the GOP would not just take control of the House and Senate, but that wingnutty candidates like Blake Masters and Tudor Dixon were likely to win their races.
Spoiler alert: they most certainly did not. If online activism decided who won elections, Ron Paul would have beaten John Edwards in the Presidential election of 2004. (Thankfully, we were spared a militantly ideological wingnut winning the White House that year, and Ron Paul wouldn't have been much better.)
It’s advice Canadian conservatives should take to heart, too. While there are serious questions about the Trudeau government's handling of the “freedom convoy” occupying downtown Ottawa last winter, most Canadians were opposed to the protesters’ demands and considered them a nuisance at best and a security threat at worst.
But the Conservative Party of Canada went all-in on a new leader who bent over backwards to cozy up to the Convoy, and now we’re seeing the results. It’s not just American conservatives throwing away winnable elections lately.
I really want to know how many people this went through before it landed on Amsterdam tourist-trap store shelves, and whether any of them realized even for a moment why someone might have a problem with it.
Tableware company Blond Amsterdam has removed a bowl featuring a smiling Anne Frank cartoon drawing from store shelves after the imagery on the bowl stirred up controversy. The Amsterdam-area company said on Monday that revenue from the bowls already sold will be donated in full to a charity, though that charity has not yet been chosen.
The Israel Information and Documentation Center criticized the depiction of a smiling Anne Frank used to sell bowls in the company’s Hollands Glorie line. The lobbying group for Jewish and Israeli issues called the bowls “extremely inappropriate,” and was among several advising the item be removed from stores.
I can only imagine what their Poland souvenirs look like.