Make Your Voice Heard

This past week, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald, ruled that Trump had violated the United States Constitution when he blocked critical voices from his Twitter feed. This ruling came about expressly because the White House and Trump have expressly argued that even though Twitter may be an unusual official platform for the office, Trump's use of Twitter constituted official government speech. If he hadn't made that abundantly clear, then he would be fine as he has First Amendment rights of his own.

And that's what it's about folks, First Amendment rights, the Constitution, the legal foundation of everything we supposedly believe and support. But guess what? Trump has not unblocked anyone since the ruling even though the judge made it quite clear that was what needed to happen. She even opined that reasonable people would pay attention and no further legal action should be needed as the Constitution is bedrock, not ephemeral. But Trump did not unblock anyone.

So what can we do? This is not simply about the group of people whose words were blocked; this is about the rule of law, the guaranteed rights of Americans, respect for the judicial system, etc. Trump tramples all over those foundational ideas and no one should shrug their shoulders. It doesn't much matter which side one sits on since sooner or later it will be your ox that gets gored. It's the First Amendment this week, next week it might be the Fourth Amendment, or any other notion that we, as a nation, accept and respect.

So if Trump won't listen to the judge, then perhaps Twitter can be made to listen to the judge. Despite Trump's numerous violations of Twitter rules in the past, they have not blocked him but this is so different from simply being rude that it's laughable. It is us, all of us, who have the power to use our voices to tell Twitter to listen to the judge. If Trump can't be made to behave then Twitter must pay attention to the judge's ruling.  Tell them so. Tell your friends to tell them so. Tell your newspaper to tell them so.