MSNBC Chief Legal Analyst Ari Melber’s comments on Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter were pure, weapons-grade obliviousness mixed with a hefty portion of panicked realization.
In the 31-second clip below, Melber, consumed by fear, had no idea he was describing exactly what Twitter, Facebook, Google, YouTube and the legacy media have been doing to conservatives for years.
“You own all of Twitter or Facebook or what have you, you don’t have to explain yourself,” he told viewers. “You don’t even have to be transparent. You could secretly ban one party’s candidate or all of its candidates, all of its nominees. Or you could secretly turn down the reach of their stuff and turn up the reach of something else and the rest of us may not even find out about it until after the election.
Melber’s lack of self-awareness was staggering. His tone is a mixture of sarcasm and accusation as he describes precisely how social media can influence the outcomes of elections. We can only assume that he knows how it’s done because this is exactly what Twitter did to President Donald Trump in 2020.
If Twitter and Facebook had not worked to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story, Joe Biden may very well have lost the election. Polls have shown that, had they known of the scandals surrounding Biden and his family prior to casting their ballots, one in six voters would have voted differently.
The 2020 election results in the battleground states were narrow despite the Democratic Party’s advantages — and the 2022 midterms and 2024 presidential election will be uphill battles even if they had retained control of Twitter. As the video plays, you can almost feel his horror and anxiety building.
Suddenly he’s struck with the realization that Republicans could do to them what they’ve been doing to us for years.
After a decade of being fully in control of every major social media platform and most of the major networks and newspapers, his party has lost control of one social media company. Although we are delighted that a free speech enthusiast has bought Twitter, compared to the left’s control of the rest of social media and most of the legacy media, they still retain the lion’s share of institutional power.
Yet losing one small piece of their media oligopoly seems to fill them with terror. I read that as their knowing that America isn’t nearly as far to the left as they pretend to think it is; otherwise why worry about losing one platform?
The left’s apprehension over Musk’s purchase of a social media platform that has long been dominated by the left is nothing short of extraordinary.
They’ve grown accustomed to the one-way street.
In his opening monologue on Monday night, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson said: “Musk’s purchase of Twitter is the single biggest political development since Donald Trump’s election in 2016. It is certainly the most threatening challenge to the corrupt and incompetent leadership of this country.”
They hate Musk because they can’t control him, Carlson argued.
And Musk plans to allow people to speak freely. It’s suddenly sinking in that the control over debate in America the left had begun to take for granted is about to be clawed back by the people.
A couple of weeks ago, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced the stunning news that Musk had decided not to join the company’s board of directors.
It took roughly a nanosecond for sheer panic to set in among the liberal elites.
They were acutely aware that he was likely setting himself up to make an even bigger move, one that might rob them of their greatest advantage: control of the news Americans are allowed to hear.
The next day, Max Boot, neocon columnist for The Washington Post, tweeted:
"I am frightened by the impact on society and politics if Elon Musk acquires Twitter. He seems to believe that on social media anything goes. For democracy to survive, we need more content moderation, not less".
Think about that statement. For democracy to survive, we need censorship.
It’s not often the left admits who they really are. Melber told us the truth today.
We would be wise to listen.
