Thread by @pbump

This is a great example of how Trump's tendency to reduce his rhetoric to slogans often isn't actually that useful. (1/)

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1313511340124917760

What Trump's saying, in essence, is that he objects to purported censorship by social media companies. It's a common complaint on the right after efforts to reduce toxicity and falsehoods led to demotion of accounts and deletion of content. (2/)

It is, in other words, an issue that's not only specific to his base but to a very particular subset of his base. It would be like Biden tweeting "MIXED-USE DEVELOPMENT!" (3/)

Except that it would be more like Biden tweeting "YIMBY!" since the "section 230" thing is just a meta-reference to the whole issue in the first place. (Exactly how doesn't matter for our purposes, but it's worth noting that Trump's embracing a misinterpretation of a law.) (4/)

So four weeks before the election, Trump tweets out this weird, cryptic reference that only people who already support him are going to understand, much less care about.

But, of course, it is still better than telling people to not worry about catching a deadly virus. (5/5)

In this case, that's true! But it doesn't detract from the points above.

https://twitter.com/sunriseseachday/status/1313515753648402433