It is with great smugness but much greater exasperation that I confirm that article to be EXACTLY what I’d expect from a Politico article with a headline like that.

Basically rehashing a bunch of “why won’t the left realize that to question any Democrat in any way is to automatically become a Republican plant working against America?” type bullshit.

Hell, they use Mark Kelly (one issue demagogue candidate caught being a deeply corrupt liar) as an example of the perfect Democrat candidate and The Intercept exposing his lies and corruption as an example of a BAD thing to do! 🤦

In order to win, you have to get voters that are as close to your opponent as possible

That may have been the case in the 90s, but nowadays not many people occupy that space. Nobody wants an almost-Republican when they can get the real deal and if you’re morally bankrupt enough to ALMOST be a Republican, you’re usually willing to take that last step in exchange for a shitload of bribes.

without your base staying home in protest.

That’s just it: Dems arepretending that it’s always going to be 1992.

That Republicans are always going to be legitimate opposition acting in good faith rather than a fascist cult.

That just a little to the left of the GOP is the ideologically perfect Democrat and always will be.

This stubborn insistence on keeping up pretenses and never admitting they’re wrong or trying another way is costing them a shitload more people staying home than they’re gaining independents or wavering Republicans.

It’s why Democrats are only winning by the slimmest of margins and even lost the House at a time when winning by landslides should be easier than ever since the opposition is the most incompetent fascist party in history and the majority of the population is to the left of center. Not just left at where neoliberals pretend that the center is, left of ACTUAL center.

Meanwhile, what the majority of the PEOPLE want is M4A or another single payer plan with more coverage for much less money than the current free for all for predatory private “health insurance” companies.

There’s literally no good reason to settle for the ACA in 2024.

I can’t identify what makes TikTok special in that regard

Demographics. Tiktok has more Gen Z people than the other platforms and Gen Z are just a much better generation than the others at activism. As a left wing anti-authoritarian pacifist elder millenial, I’m frankly in awe about how much ass they’re kicking compared to my generation, Gen X and Boomers.

Gen Z goes where other Gen Z are and if we scatter them by letting some xenophobic politicians close down their main platform for activism, we lose a shitload that’s much more important than appearing “tough on China” in an election year.

relying on a hyper-capitalist platform that is controlled in no small part by an a authoritarian, imperialist, and hostile foreign government through so-called “golden shares”, was always a bad idea.

That’s just the thing, though: Tiktok activists have invented am enormous glossary of code words and other tricks to get around the censorship and other suppression of the platform.

Anti-authoritarian Tiktok activists are beating the hypercapitalist corporation and the oppressive government and American politicians want to shut them up just as much as they want to score cheap political points by pretending that China is any more of a danger to democracy and free speech than Facebook and Google.

They’re banning ByteDance from owning it. TikTok will live on

Yeah, they can’t do that. They can’t just tell an officially private company that hasn’t broken any existing laws “you don’t own it anymore. Sell it to someone we approve of* or we shut it down”

If any country tried to do that to an American company, they’d be treated like Cuba 2.0.

*read: someone who pays us more in legal bribes

Removed by mod

Can it be October yet? I want me some ethical chonker appreciation and there aren’t a lot of Arctic Foxes in the news these days!

At first I thought she might have been too vocal against some of their hatred. Maybe she’d finally stopped enabling racism against people who look like her but have a lot less money? Spoke up against the rampant sexism inherent in the far right cesspool that she’d contributed to?

Nope! Turns out that she was engaging in the ONLY type of bigotry that isn’t joyously celebrated at The Daily Wire 🤦

I couldn’t agree more if I tried 🤜🤛

Probably not, but yeah, they’d do it if they could get away with it. Fucking Texas 😮‍💨

Oh no, my poor little $200 billion corporation

I don’t give a fuck about Tiktok the corporation. I do, on the other hand, give a fuck about the users of the platform. Especially the ones using it for activism.

Since you’re slow on the uptake, let me try an equivalent example.

Imagine that a UK-based social media based platform is banned im the US for some reason or the other.

Would that justify the UK banning Google?

The actions of the Chinese government are not the fault or responsibility of Tiktok and as such punishing Tiktok for them is by definition grotesquely unjust.

conservative fascist PM

Fixed that for you. It’s important not to normalize fascism by pretending that it’s just your usual possibly somewhat benign conservatism.

Point to where I said TikTok = China lmao

I also never said TikTok is banning U.S. platforms

What you DID say was that it’s ok to ban Tiktok because of the actions of China, namely the banning of some American platforms. That would only make any kind of legal sense if Tiktok indeed WAS China.

Therapy and several different pedagogical approaches exist.

Imprisoning* children does not have a positive effect in the vast majority of cases.

To take them away from their peers, take away their freedom and abuse them does NOT teach them how to behave better.

It only compounds whatever trauma and bad decisions led them to act out in the first place, much more frequently leading to a negative spiral where they’re deprived of any effective means of bettering themselves, then when they almost inevitably re-offend, they’re punished by the same deprivation if not worse.

*juvenile detention being the likely outcome of any criminal proceedings here

Again, Tiktok ≠ China.

While it can certainly be argued that its ties to the government are problematic, it’s not Tiktok banning US platforms.

If Tiktok WAS banning platforms for xenophobic reasons (demonstrating intolerance), banning it for that would be prudent as per the paradox of tolerance linked above.

That isn’t the case, though. The US ban is an intolerant and oppressive violation of the freedom of expression of the users of Tiktok and, yes, even the owners.

Even if the oppressive Chinese government has a big influence on the platform, that influence hasn’t been proven to cause Tiktok to behave in an intolerant manner, so it’s basically a case of declaring guilt by association.

The US government could and SHOULD introduce regulations to minimize the amount of data collection and -sharing that Tiktok, Facebook, Twitter, Google and others currently get away with and then punish all transgressions against those regulations.

AKA regulate and punish bad behavior from anyone doing it, not banning a popular platform guilty only of what congress refuses to try to stop them and others from doing.

It isn’t “greedflation,” it’s literally the same capitalism we’ve lived with for centuries.

You’re both absolutely right and very wrong: it by definition IS greedflation, inflated prices due to greed.

While it is indeed caused by the same capitalist system we’ve lived with for centuries, it’s getting much worse than it has been now that the billionaires and their corporations have realized that there’s no consequences even when their profiteering is so blatant that even the likes of Forbes and WSJ are having to acknowledge what they’ve been able to distract from before.

Alternative headline: “Indian wealth hoarding run amok; inequality eclipsing even United States”

That doesn’t apply here since Tiktok isn’t being intolerant. The Chinese and US governments are.

It’s not being more like China. It’s treating them the way they treat us.

So…acting like China acts is not being like China?

The same thing is often done

Did nobody ever teach you that two wrongs don’t make a right? Or about the Appeal To Tradition logical fallacy?

when other countries level a tariff against our products.

Which rock were you living under when Trump waged his stupid tariff war with China? Nothing good came from that bullshit, least of all for the working class people of both countries.

have them be released for no real reason except to force him.

Nope. Turns out that there IS a real reason why public financial disclosure via tax returns has become standards practice for presidential candidates: it’s to show the public that there’s no conflicts of interest to worry about.

That Trump refused to release his was one red flag amongst many indicating that he had foreign business interests that he refused to divest from. Such conflicts of interest are a national security threat in the case of ANY high ranking government official, let alone the president himself.

prosecutors in New York would have ignored his fraudulent business practices, which they likely ignored for several years prior, if he hadn’t become president and was seeking re-election.

So you’re saying that it’s unfair that he no longer gets a free pass to commit tons of crimes now that he’s more publicly visible? Cry me a river!

Again, I am not defending him

Yeah, you are. You may not think that you are, but you definitely are.