Please Stop Excusing Trump's Bad Behavior
I know it leads to nothing - that is no reason to not express concern
At 9:45 PM on December 1st, President Trump decided to announce via Twitter that he would veto the NDAA if it did not include a repeal of Section 230. The NDAA is the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the bill that determines the military budget for fiscal year 2020. As Trump puts it, Section 230 is “corporate welfare” that only benefits “Big tech” and is somehow a national security and election integrity risk. Section 230 is the law that states that providers of an interactive computer service cannot be held liable for the content posted on the service by third party users and that if an interactive computer service wishes to moderate content they can do so without being held legally liable for the content they choose to leave untouched.
At this point you might be wondering what a repeal of Section 230 has to do with defense spending or national security. The answer is - absolutely nothing at all. Trump’s threat to veto the NDAA unless he gets his way is a blatant attempt to extort Congress into repealing a law he personally doesn’t like. It is shameful that he would even attempt it.
Thankfully the idea seems to be DOA, with a House staffer telling Politico
“It’s a fucking joke,” said the staffer, who spoke anonymously to discuss private negotiations. “This is a complex debate that has no business as an eleventh-hour airdrop.”
The pushback against including a Section 230 repeal is bipartisan; Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), Rep. Paul Mitchell (R-MI), and Rep Ron Wyden (D-OR) have all made public statements against the plan.
It’s easy to look at this as yet another unsuccessful attempt by Trump to do something that is either unethical or illegal, shrug your shoulders, thank the gods that the system is still working properly, and move on. I think that is a dangerous stance to take because it excuses and normalizes the idea that such an attempt should be tolerated.
More worrisome to me is that I see this same idea of “well he’s not going to succeed so who cares” attitude applied toward Trump’s post-election actions. Yes, I am aware that Trump is not going to be successful in his attempts to overturn the election results. He lost, he has no legal avenues left, and come January 20th he will no longer be President. His inability to prevail in his quest should not be used as a reason to excuse his behavior.
Here is why; when you don’t speak out against bad behavior it gives the impression that the behavior is fine. In this case, not speaking out against Trump’s ridiculous legal challenges, his attempts to coerce state lawmakers into appointing electors to go against the voter’s will, and his assumption that the Supreme Court will hand the election to him signals a certain acceptance that this is fine and normal for a President to be attempting. It isn’t and should never be accepted as such.
To normalize this sort of behavior opens the door for the next sore general election loser to follow the same path. And the next one up may be a little smarter, a little slicker, have a better legal team and better lawsuits, might know better than to announce his or her misdeeds to all the world. The system might not work as well next time to prevent such a person from being successful.
That’s why it’s so important to fight back against the bad behavior; we should be aiming to stop the behavior, not relying on the system to thwart it.