Month: December 2024
Trump has gone way too far
I haven’t commented yet on Donald Trump’s nominations most egregious nominations. He wants Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense and Kash Patel to be FBI Director. These are outrageous choices. I’ll be horrified if the Senate confirms them.
A drunk, abusing, corrupt Christian Zionist
Hegseth abuses women, including those who worked for him. He is a Christian nationalist and white supremacist. He drinks to excess and uses funds for illicit purposes. “Kill all Muslims” is something he shouted when inebriated.
This particular combination of disqualifications is remarkable even in Trump’s Cabinet nominees. Only Matt Gaetz comes close. He wisely withdrew from Trump’s nomination to be Attorney General.
My guess is Hegseth will not make it through the “advice and consent” of the Senate. The Republicans can only afford to lose a handful of votes there. The position requires sobriety and decorum. Hegseth is so blatantly unqualified that I hope more than a handful will oppose him.
A vindictive sycophant
Patel is a different problem. The President appoints the FBI Director for 10 years. Christopher Wray, the incumbent, has another 2 years on his appointment. He has tried to restore the FBI’s professional non-partisan cred. That is precisely why Trump wants him out.
Instead, the President-elect wants someone who will do his bidding. That will include both restraint in pursuing Trump’s friends and supporters as well as ferocious aggression in pursuing his enemies. Patel would do just that. He plans to purge the Bureau’s upper levels, close its headquarters, and send agents out to pursue Trump’s antagonists.
Lots of Republican Senators will welcome such an effort. It will protect them and counter what they see as Democratic bias at the Bureau. The only hope is that a few will see the risk in such a partisan extremist. I am not an FBI enthusiast, but Patel will make the Bureau an instrument of retribution, not law enforcement. For at least half the country that will be unacceptable.
Better worse?
Some would argue that worse is better. Hegseth and Patel will no doubt, if confirmed, do things that will embarrass and even ruin Trump. I don’t buy that, even if true. The damage to America’s image in the world and to its its institutions of defense and justice is too great. The Senate needs to reject Hegseth and Patel. Better even before they have hearings, like Gaetz.
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To tweet or not, that is the question
I am now beginning to post on Bluesky, the latest competitor of X/Twitter. I have profiles on Threads and Post, but I haven’t used them. Those two competitors never took off.
I don’t know if Bluesky will either. But the election results stimulated an exodus of interesting people from Twitter. They are mostly Democrats and never-Trump Republicans. I haven’t run into any Trumpkins there.
Why leave Twitter?
The arguments for leaving Twitter are strong. Its owner and operator is a billionaire Trump enthusiast and financier. The platform has been favoring pro-Trump views and slighting anti-Trump posts. Its revenue and usage is down sharply since he sliced staff, raised fees, and all but eliminated moderation,. Except for his political opponents of course. The number of American users is down. Trolling is up. For many people, the atmosphere has become toxic.
Bluesky is providing a far more friendly environment. Its algorithm is not slighting Democrats or promoting conflict. Discussion there can be vigorous, but not not nearly as poisonous as on Twitter. It is free and does not intend to allow advertising.
Why not leave Twitter?
That said, I am not planning to leave Twitter soon. There are several reasons.
First of course is the accumulation of more than 7000 followers for @DanielSerwer. That is an important entry point for www.peacefare.net. It will be a long time before I can gain even a fraction of that on Bluesky.
Second, many of my followers are not Americans. Few non-Americans have joined Bluesky, which is the product of the polarized political environment in the United States. It has more than 20 million users, which is extraordinary. But still a good deal less than Twitter/X’s 60 million Americans. Twitter/X has more than 350 million non-American users. I’ll gladly welcome non-Americans to Bluesky. But I suppose if they want to understand our politics, Twitter/X is more representative.
Third, I regret the loss of a common space, even one tainted with toxicity. Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, argues on Twitter/X that it is better to stay to debate issues than self-isolate in a friendlier environment. Trolls deserve a chance to show they can be sensible. And to tell the truth, they haven’t much plagued me. I’ve blocked very few people all these years (I joined Twitter in 2010).
Yes, Tweet, but Bluesky as well.
So on balance I prefer to do both Twitter/X and Bluesky, at least for now. Twitter in its heyday was an extraordinary way to talk with the world. I wish it had remained that way. Or that some public-spirited billionaire would put Musk out of his misery and buy it. S/he could then fix the algorithm and moderate the content.
But that isn’t happening. So I’ll migrate to Bluesky gradually, keeping my presence and activity on Twitter/X as well. It’s a burden, but not an unbearable one.
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