Most Americans are old enough to remember when Republicans insisted that executive orders were “government overreach” and that signing them made a president into a dictator, even though the last two Republican presidents signed more executive orders than the last two Democrats.
Not one of those Republicans has commented thus far on news that Donald Trump, the leader of the Republican Party, plans to sign an executive order “regarding social media” the day after one of his tweets were fact-checked by Twitter. Trump went on a rant following the fact-check, insisting that he should be free to spread as much disinformation he wants while railing against “fake news.”
Twitter fact-checked Trump by placing a link under his tweets spreading disinformation on mail-in ballots, which Trump insists lead to widespread voter fraud. However, numerous sources of research shows that there have been fewer cases of voter fraud in the United States in the past 10 years than reported cases of UFO sightings.
McEnany refused to disclose any details of what an executive order regulating “social media” might entail, but Trump threatened on Tuesday night that “as president” he would not allow Twitter to fact-check him while railing about free speech.
Trump has riled up his 80 million Twitter followers, and Trump, Jr. has run with the conspiracy theory, saying that conservatives have been silenced by social media outlets, inventing a conspiracy theory about outlets like Twitter and Facebook to ramp up the “us versus them” theme that is the hallmark of his presidential campaigns and presidency.
Twitter had a big reaction to the news. See some of their responses below:
Featured image screenshot via YouTube
