The purge

So the purge is on:

1. Just as many conservatives predicted: if the Democrats win the White House and the Senate, then the left will seek to silence opposition or dissent. That's what's happening right now.

Specifically, as many know by now, Twitter banned Trump and locked the POTUS account too. They won't reinstate the POTUS account until Biden takes office. This is despite the fact that Trump is still the sitting president. And not only has Trump been banned, but many of his supporters too, even though many of his supporters haven't said anything that would incite riots or racism.

In addition, big tech companies removed alternatives to Twitter like Parler and Gab. I can no longer download either app via Google Play or the Apple Store. These apps can still be downloaded via a site like APKPure. However, if Parler and Gab have their businesses ended, thanks to big tech's concerted effort to destroy their businesses, then there's no point downloading either app.

In a way, it feels more like this is communist China, not the United States, where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will "direct" all "loyal" Chinese including Chinese companies to do what the CCP deems best for "the people", then Chinese companies and other organizations immediately comply.

2. This could backfire against big tech companies. It could significantly hurt big tech business and it could encourage alternative tech businesses who are more fair to establish themselves in big tech's spaces.

Apart from Parler and Gab, there's also Telegram.org, Minds.com, MeWe.com. I'm sure there are others. Telegram may be the most viable choice right now, though we're in a dynamic situation that's changing day by day. In any case, I appreciate what Telegram wrote here.

3. Hindsight is 20/20, but perhaps conservatives should have revoked big tech's section 230 immunities when they had the chance. See my past posts here and here.

4. Sure, legally speaking, Twitter can do what it wants including banning Trump from Twitter. However, at the very least, isn't this setting a bad or even horrendous precedent regarding free speech? Suppose roles were reversed and Twitter banned Biden or Harris because they supposedly "incited" riots through Antifa and BLM. What would the left say?

By the way, it's ironic that the left has historically been known as defenders of individual liberties like free speech, but today the left is apparently fine to stand against free speech. To be more accurate, the left is fine with censoring the speech of conservatives, not their own speech.

5. One would think leftists of all people would be concerned that private corporations can undermine the government. Isn't this what leftists have always railed against? However, since big tech, mainstream media, Hollywood studios, and many other huge companies are on the side of leftists, leftists aren't all that concerned. What if this comes back to bite leftists someday? What if Frankenstein's monster devours Frankenstein?

6. This goes to the issue of double standards. I'd be more fine with Twitter banning Trump if Twitter also banned (say) communist Chinese and pro-communist Chinese agencies for their totalitarianism against Hong Kong, among others. But Twitter doesn't have a problem with China and allows them to tweet all sorts of contentious and arguably evil things.

7. No surprise, but the mainstream media is just fine with all this. In fact, Andy Ngo points out: "Feeling empowered after Twitter’s banning of President Trump, left-wing journalists are pressuring the platform to ban conservative and independent journalists."

It's obvious the mainstream media and big tech don't want conservatives and other dissenters to have platforms by which we can voice our thoughts and opinions.

8. Yet, as Peter Pike notes in his video "Bannings don't work" (well worth watching!), this may have the opposite effect intended by the left: it may harden conservatives and others in our position. It's far better to change minds by open public debate based on reason and argument, not by trying to censor or cancel people deemed toxic without letting them speak their minds.

9. For example, even if Biden won the White House fair and square, there are millions and millions of Americans (not only conservatives, but many liberals, moderates, independents, and others) who don't think that's the case, because it's been obvious the left has behaved in extremely suspicious ways, to put it mildly. So there may be a cloud of doubt about the legitimacy of Biden's victory hanging over his presidency.

Instead what the mainstream media could have done is given Trump a fair hearing on national television to attempt to make a legal case regarding the election results, just as Gore did in 2000, and not said things like Trump must concede, Trump is a tyrant who will refuse to relinquish power (even though Trump had the perfect opportunity to seize power in the pandemic, which is what the governors of California and New York did, but Trump didn't), those who support Trump are supporting white supremacy, and so on. If that had happened, and Trump's legal team couldn't make their case for why the election results should be overturned, then it would have legitimized Biden's presidency.

As an aside, some might be interested in the recent HBO documentary Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America's Elections. Likewise consider the work of the Danish computer scientist and electronic voting technology expert Carsten Schürmann. Neither Kill Chain nor Schürmann are conservative.

10. Worse, if enough Americans feel like they have no voice or venue to vent their frustrations, then history has shown us this is one of the ingredients in a recipe for violent revolution.

11. The mainstream media can say with a perfectly straight face that Antifa and BLM haven't committed any acts of violence but are peaceful protests (despite clear evidence to the contrary), while at the same time say Trump and his supporters are all militant white supremacists (despite clear evidence to the contrary). Not to mention the mainstream media can say that they have never incited or fomented acts of violence (e.g. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor), but then accuse Trump and his supporters of doing just that. How the mainstream media define "violence" strikes me as rather Orwellian!

12. Of course, the mainstream media can say all this because they largely control the news and thus the narrative that appears on the news. And the mainstream media overwhelmingly leans or is left. See Timothy Groseclose's book Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind (2012). He points out that over 90% of the mainstream media votes Democrat each election (and consider that my home state of California voted 64% for Biden and 34% for Trump this election which would seem to make the mainstream media more liberal than even California), and Groseclose argues the mainstream media positively benefits the Democratic party anywhere between 6 to 10 points depending on the election.

13. Leftists are teaching many Americans an important lesson: might makes right. That is, when the left is in control, when the left has power, then the left decides what to do.

After all, the mainstream media, big tech, Hollywood, the ivory towers of academia, some professional sports organizations including many in the NFL and NBA, among others, are predominantly controlled by or kowtow to leftists.

At the same time, leftists are attempting to cram leftist values down people's throats without giving people much space to object. (And I fear if the left attempts to end the filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, make DC and Puerto Rico states, and/or bypass the electoral college which they are already doing via the NPVIC.)

As such, there's no civility, no reasonable debate, no hearing each side out, no compromise to make things work, etc. No, it's all about who's in control, who has power, and whoever has power is the one who decides what goes and what doesn't go. That's the lesson the left is teaching Americans today.

To be fair, it's not necessarily just leftists who treat Americans this way. Sad to say but many conservatives would likely do the same. See how the establishment conservatives treated the Tea Party conservatives for example. See how some Never Trumpers talk about many fellow conservatives.

In any case, if the lesson leftists are teaching us is that might makes right, then if the right ever comes back into power, then what's keeping the right from doing the same?

God forbid we are living in the final days of the American republic.

14. By the way, Triablogue is on Blogger and Blogger is owned by Google. There could come a point in the future when conservative Christian websites like Triablogue are forcibly taken down too. People should consider making a backup of Triablogue if they wish to preserve Steve Hays' writings and/or other Tbloggers' writings.