The news about the board of Twitter agreeing to a $44B takeover offer from the billionaire Elon Musk caused both celebrations and meltdowns all over the world.
Musk tweeted the following:
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated. I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential - I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
The situation currently on Twitter is such that merely questioning the groupthink can get a user suspended. At times, information is suppressed without the user's knowledge — i.e., the tweet is allowed, but its visibility is restricted. Twitter also allows and promotes trends that are beneficial to the progressive agenda.
For conservatives, the hope is that Musk will liberate the platform from its overwhelming leftward bias and restore free speech. Many conservatives are hoping their suspended accounts will be restored.
The left's meltdown began the very day Musk made his bid public. Twitter employees staged walkouts in protest. MSNBC warned its few viewers that Musk's takeover of Twitter will have "massive, life and globe-altering consequences." SNL took the low road; under the guise of satire, they claimed that Musk's bid was because "White guys want to use the N-word."
Now that the bid has been accepted, the New York Times, in a cliché-ridden article that reads like a parody piece, is claiming that "Musk's reasons for taking control of Twitter aren't about free speech; it's about controlling a megaphone. With his legion of fans, Musk will command a gigantic megaphone and be free to plug his own investments, pooh-pooh sound health regulations and shout down critics."
The article also claims that "[f]emale Twitter users, in particular, ought to worry about whether Musk will bring his apparent disdain for women to the company he is about to own. Twitter is already a toxic place for women who use it, particularly those of color."
White House officials and Democrat strategists are reportedly worried about how Musk's $44-billion takeover of Twitter will affect the 2024 presidential election. Their concerns are focused on the possibility that President Donald Trump returns to Twitter.
On Twitter, liberal users are threatening to quit the platform, much like how they threatened to leave the U.S. when Donald Trump was elected president in 2016.
Twitter's board may have accepted Musk's offer, but that doesn't mean things change magically. Twitter has a complex organizational structure. There are copious policies and standards. There are rules of corporate governance that mandate multi-level approvals for any changes. All of this means abundant red tape before any change is allowed to percolate.
It also would be wrong to assume that the powers that be behind the scenes in Twitter, especially those who walked out, are not planning ways to sabotage Musk's agenda to ease restrictions. Perhaps the rules of approval have been made more complex and opaque.
Even if Musk manages to recruit a team who believes in his agenda, it will take a considerable amount of time before changes occur, and there may still be saboteurs within.
It is also not beyond the realm of possibility that the U.S. government will step to regulate the platform, citing hateful conduct or terror threats or any other flimsy excuse.
The point remains that although we hope Musk turns Twitter into a utopia for free expression, we must be cognizant of the forces he is up against.
The Washington Democrat establishment and their allies all over know that if Twitter falls, the remaining social media platforms will either be rendered irrelevant or will have to fall in line and allow free speech.
Do not expect the establishment to surrender; they will not let go without a prolonged dirty war, like the one they are still waging against Trump.
Much like Trump's victory in November 2016, Musk's Twitter takeover in April 2022 is not the end, but the beginning of a long journey.
When Donald Trump won the presidency, the powers that be in Washington should have accepted the public verdict. They should have worked with President Trump to implement his agenda. They should have been humble about their defeat while attempting to learn what went wrong so they could embark on course correction for the next election. This is what civics textbooks have taught us.
But the reality is drastically different. The Washington Democrat establishment rejected the results, claiming that Trump colluded with the Russians to rig the elections. They placed numerous impediments before President Trump by misusing the powers of various agencies to concoct scandals without any basis and using the mainstream media to amplify their lies.
In doing so, they accomplished two goals. The first is that they managed to slow down the pace of Trump's implementation of his agenda. The second is that they managed to convince some voters to vote against the GOP in 2018 and against Trump in 2020. Victory in the 2019 midterms enabled the Democrats to take control of the House, which led to two baseless impeachments of Trump.
It is a miracle that Trump, despite all these impediments, managed to implement a great deal of his agenda on the economy, border security, and so much more. It is also a testament to the astuteness of U.S. voters that Trump managed to secure 74 million votes.
Time will tell if Musk's journey turns out to be merely eventful or successful.
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