Why Musk's Takeover of Twitter Matters

I’ve felt for years that the Left has been punching way above its intellectual weight class. Twitter had a lot to do with that.

Imagine a public square where anybody can say anything they want, you can listen or not. Now imagine that "square" is flooded by 9 robots for every 1 real person - placed there to "like" what someone is saying. Now imagine one person is paid $17M per year to ensure that the only people who get to take the podium and speak are pre-approved by the Censor in Chief herself, whose bosses pay for the bots - paid to reinforce the narrative. It’s a closed ecosystem - an opinion echo chamber. A Potemkin town square. Tweeters are literally preaching to a packed house full of the like-minded, many of whom are algorithmically directed bots, not flesh and blood humans. We conservatives have long thought of the Left as hive-minded - we have the proof now.

That's the Twitterverse today.

Now, if you will, imagine who would actually use such a platform regularly.

I didn’t. I’m not on Twitter and don’t understand who would willingly indulge such a fantasy world as real. But here’s what Ann Coulter said to a billionaire friend of hers as to why he should buy Twitter:

ALL news comes from Twitter. Facebook is for getting in touch with high school friends and the “topic” groups are mostly nuts — anti-vax, stop the steal, black conspiracy theories. Same w/the newer platforms like Telegram. Snapchat and Instagram are for “influencers,” wannabe Kardashians.

Twitter is where the NYT, Politico and Fox News etc. get their stories and find their guests. Have one of your ppl read my Twitter feed and then watch XXXXX for a week. I’m his unpaid booker and content provider, except, sadly, when I get lazy and he goes off on his own with some moronic “expose” …

Now Ann Coulter is smart, if nothing else (she’s almost certainly referring to Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity here). I’ve followed her column for decades and even stuck with her through a lot of anti-Trump nonsense in recent years. With Trump, you have to take the many good policies and benefits with the occasional bad. Just like with Coulter, I don’t agree with everything. But on the issue of Twitter’s influence on “the news”, she would know that - she lives among them.

Coulter doesn’t mention the government’s Twitter fixation. She should have. Because prominent among this closed ecosystem are government employees - and many with “official” accounts. Twitter is how they get their “message” out to their “millions” of devoted “followers”. That would be all of government - executive, legislative and judiciary - they all have personal and “official” accounts. They live within the ecosystem too.

So to connect the dots - “the news” is formulated within a closed ecosystem and the government uses that same ecosystem to promote policy positions. Are you starting to see why this damn platform “matters”? Can you understand why your opinion, comfortably residing outside of Twitter, gets marginalized or is never even considered in national policy?

This is why the Democrats had to control Twitter, control the platform, censor conservatives, ban conservative thought, shadow ban ideas and concepts they don’t agree with. They need the government people to think there’s this enormous, overwhelming progressive majority in America, desperately eager for Joe Biden’s policies. They need Democrats to be reinforced in their approach to governing - and they need Republicans to be scared. And Twitter (as it is today) has enabled all of that.

They weaponized Twitter. And since this is where “the news” comes from - and it’s where government people go to sense “the real mood of the people” - it matters to you and me. Even if you, like me, don’t use the damn thing.

I can only take Elon Musk at his word when he says he wants to open the platform up to all voices, end the censoring and get the bots under control. I believe him because he has a record of doing what he says he’ll do. I don’t think I’m alone in believing him, just look at the howling, wailing, gnashing of teeth and rending of garments among the Leftosphere. Clearly they believe him!

I doubt Musk has patriotism in his heart with this purchase. I wish it were so, but one doesn’t throw $43 billion around on an emotional bender, even if you happen to be the richest man in the world with a net worth of $290 billion. I think he genuinely likes the idea of Twitter, but not what it has come to - this censorious echo chamber of Karenskölds - and he was in a position to do something about that. I don’t doubt he considered the profitability of the platform - what it could be - into his calculations.

So I’m optimistic on two fronts: first, that the cabal of left-wing activist Democrats and their government cronies will now have to compete on an equal footing in the town square; and secondly that maybe the outsize influence of the left across all social media platforms will take a considerable hit. I’ve felt for years that the Left has been punching way above its intellectual weight class. Twitter had a lot to do with that.

Had.