Few issues have galvanized the conservative base in recent years quite like the threat of Big Tech. Persistent political censorship, from the suppression of reporting to the deplatforming of a sitting president, has given conservatives ample reason to be incensed. But a few conservative lawmakers, such as Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), have rightly diagnosed recurring Big Tech censorship not as isolated events, but as downstream symptoms of a much broader problem: monopoly power.

These aspiring conservative trust-busters have faced formidable headwinds. Fellow Republicans have questioned their fidelity to the free market and accused them of enabling the Left, while aggressive corporate lobbying and a hostile press beholden to Big Tech have tried to stymie their spirited legislative efforts.

But now, anti-monopoly conservatives can declare a major victory. On Thursday, the House passed the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of 2022. Don't let the anodyne name fool you; the antitrust package is a bold first step that will fortify national security, curtail corporate abuses, and restore free competition to core American markets.

The package pushes reforms along three crucial fronts. First, it will expose the malign influence in our markets of the Chinese Communist Party and other hostile regimes. The bill includes provisions that will require companies operating in the U.S. to disclose ties to foreign governments when they enter into a merger agreement. Analysts have documented China's endemic influence throughout the American economy. But the added transparency measure in this bill will help ensure that businesses owned by, or beholden to, hostile regimes do not undermine American competitiveness. It is a commonsense and, indeed, necessary tool to better secure the American economy and preserve the American way of life.

The package also fixes a long-standing issue in antitrust lawsuits: venue selection. When state attorneys general bring antitrust lawsuits against Big Tech firms, the cases are not necessarily heard in the state in which they are filed. Instead, they are typically consolidated with similar cases and moved to other parts of the countryoften to a monopoly-friendly court. This enables Big Tech firms to escape the letter of the law, and has already frustrated noble efforts by some conservative state officials to hold Big Tech accountable. For example, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's lawsuit against Google was removed to a New York district court, where a corporate-friendly judge is poised to dismiss it on abstruse procedural grounds.

The new bill exempts state antitrust cases from this process of consolidation and transfer, thus leveling the playing field for state attorneys general and empowering citizens' elected representatives to hold the Big Tech firms accountable. This should better pave the way for anti-Big Tech state officials, such as Attorney General Paxton, to pursue legal recourse against Big Tech's abuses of power.

The third and final front of reform is the most necessarybut perhaps the most controversial. The bill reforms the filing fee system that corporations pay when they merge, and increases the fee for transactions exceeding $1 billion. The provision rightly penalizes the largest and most complex mergers while generating necessary funding for federal law enforcement. The fees haven't been increased in more than two decades, yet the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division faces a severe budget crunch. Recent reports have even suggested that the agency would have to choose between a case against Apple and another one against Google.

The increased fees drew harsh criticism from some Republicans, such as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). But their accusations revealed more about the accusers than the accused. Some falsely claimed that funds would empower Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan and other progressive officials under Khan; in fact, the bill make specific provisions to prevent that. Others objected that raising fees would discourage value-creating corporate mergers and distort market behavior. But of course, such mergers are fueling a consolidation in pivotal American markets that stifles competition and innovationand rarely generate value for the merging companies, to boot.

Such lawmakers may claim to stand for the rule of law, but they refuse to fund law enforcement when the targets are monopolistic corporations. They may claim the mantle of the free market, but they aid and abet the very corporate practices that undermine it. Curious, that.

Thursday's successful vote in support of the antitrust package should send a clear signalthat conservatives are alert to the threats that Big Tech and monopoly power pose not only to political speech, but to free and competitive markets in general. In the fight against monopoly power, conservatives must pick a side: big business or the free market.

If Thursday's victory is any indication, a critical mass of conservatives choose the latter. Let's hope they will build upon it after taking back Congress this fall.

Wells King is the research director at American Compass.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

Continued here:

An Early Conservative Victory in the War on Big Tech | Opinion - Newsweek

On Thursday, Sept. 22, Macalester College announced that former Congresspeople Sam Coppersmith (D-Ariz.) and Dennis Ross (R-Fla.) will visit campus to discuss reproductive rights as part of the Congress to Campus program. This announcement has been met with outrage from many students.

The Congress to Campus event will unfold in various locations across campus on Monday, Oct. 10. The former representatives will visit classes and publicly discuss reproductive rights at 4:45 P.M. in the Mairs Concert Hall, among other activities. Attendees do not have to pay for admission but must register in advance due to capacity limits.

Former representatives Coppersmith and Ross will be discussing the Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization decision, which effectively overturned Roe v. Wade. The event is advertised as an opportunity to communicate across differences, including differing political perspectives in the Mac Daily. Many students do not believe this will be effective.

Bea Green 22, who voiced concerns surrounding the program, shared her opinion with The Mac Weekly.

Saying that [the former representatives] are going to engage respectfully in vigorous disagreement, which was the language used in the blurb, about an issue as fundamental as human rights that deeply impacts peoples health, peoples lives even, is disrespectful, Green said. And people in the audience are not learning how to communicate across difference.

Greens involvement with Congress to Campus doesnt end with her individual disapproval of the event. Green collaborated with Elise Sexton 23 to schedule a discussion on Friday, Sept. 30 with the organizers of the event, Political Science Professor Andrew Latham, American Studies Professor Duchess Harris and Macalester Forensics Director Beau Larsen. Larsen will oversee which questions the forensics team will ask Coppersmith and Ross during their discussion.

Sexton, Green and several other students prepared for this discussion by circulating an anonymous survey asking for community opinions about Congress to Campus. The group of students also met with Dr. Alina Wong, Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and Dr. Kathryn Kay Coquemont, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students, for separate support.

In the meeting with Harris, Latham and Larsen, Sexton and Green read multiple responses to their survey. Although not all responses were read in the meeting, the survey received both positive and negative responses towards the Congress to Campus event.

I think its interesting and Im glad it is happening, one anonymous response read. The truth is that while rights shouldnt be debatable, they are being debated. Thats a hard truth. We cant just pretend that its not happening. Deplatforming the event doesnt actually change anything.

Reproductive rights arent up for debate, another response detailed. This event makes the dramatic loss of reproductive rights a purely academic conversation. It is not. Everyone has the right to bodily autonomy. Period.

The discussion also brought up the potential harms of the event timing. Many critics feel that it is inappropriate to hold Congress to Campus on Indigenous Peoples Day, as issues of reproductive justice disproportionately impact Indigenous communities.

I think in retrospect now, we wouldnt have chosen this date, Latham told The Mac Weekly. I didnt realize it was Indigenous Persons [sic] Day, and theres a lot of stuff going on across campus.

Although Harris and Latham chose the date for Congress to Campus, they did not choose former representatives Coppersmith and Ross as speakers. The representatives were chosen by Former Members of Congress, the organization that founded Congress to Campus.

In the update that Harris and Latham shared through the Mac Daily on Sept. 30, they responded to criticism about demographics of the former representatives: Weve heard concerns that both former members of Congress coming to campus are cisgender white men. Because the program only works with former members of Congress, the reality is that there are few female former members of Congress of any race, and few former members of Congress who identify as people of color.

Thats a reason why the people coming to campus ended up being two men, Sexton said in response. Thats not an excuse for picking a highly controversial topic that deals with an issue that affects a lot of women and amplifying the exact voices that we shouldnt be hearing on the issue.

Throughout the meeting between students and faculty, students brought up the future of Congress to Campus at Macalester. The contract that President Suzanne Rivera signed with Former Members of Congress assures Congress to Campus programming on campus for the next five years; the $2,000 commitment per year was donated by an alum. In future years, event organizers will have jurisdiction over what topics are discussed but not which former representatives visit campus.

This year, students did not have input in deciding the topic of the Congress to Campus programming. Members of the forensics team created questions to ask the former representatives, and Harris and Latham are planning on creating more opportunities for student input in the future. Harris shared that she is interested in working in collaboration with both students and outside organizations in the future.

It was saddening on Friday, to not just see the hurt in the room but to feel it, Harris said. And we are both committed to [asking], How does the campus move forward in this particular moment? And how do we live in this moment? And how do we collaborate with local organizations and national organizations to respond?

In her op-ed in The Mac Weekly with Latham, Why Congress to Campus Should be Held, the duo additionally suggests that individuals can take action by direct[ing their] righteous discontent to an organization like Family Tree Clinic, Gender Justice, UnRestrict Minnesota, Our Justice or SPIRAL Collective.

For Green and Sexton, future actions include distributing a Call to Partnership throughout the student body. This document will focus on what they believe was mishandled in organizing this years Congress to Campus programming and how the campus community can effectively move forward. In addition to this Call to Partnership, Green and Sexton plan on protesting outside the Mairs Concert Hall during the event.

I do think that communicating across differences, which is the stated goal of this event, is incredibly important, Green said. And its an incredibly important skill for Macalester students to learn and experience. But I feel that this event is not effective towards achieving that goal.

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Students respond to upcoming Congress to Campus event - Macalester College The Mac Weekly

Many conservatives have decried Section 230 for limiting their ability to restrict apps from content moderation, but any change in the law could have unexpected consequences for the billions of accounts across social media.Photo: TY Lim (Shutterstock)

On Monday, the Supreme Court announced nine cases it intends to hear in its upcoming term, includingRenaldo Gonzalez v. Google.The case directly questions the protections afforded by Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which limits the legal liability of online web hosts for the content posted by their users. That law has essentially defined what users currently understand about the internet and has served as the main shield against lawsuits for social media companies against lawmakers and citizens. Lawyers for Google have said changes in the provisions of Section 230 could threaten the basic organizational decisions of the modern internet.

The case goes back to 2015, when Nohemi Gonzalez, a U.S. citizen living Paris, was shot and killed alongside 130 other people during a terror attack carried out by members of the Islamic State. The family of Gonzalez sued Google and said the company promoted ISIS-centric content, spreading the militant groups message and helping them radicalize and recruit new members. The Supreme Court has also agreed to hear a similar case tied to an appeal from Twitter, Google, and the Meta-owned Facebook, where each faces claims they failed to remove IS-related materials from their platforms.

At the heart of Gonzalez is the question of whether 230 still shields tech companies and websites when they algorithmically recommend content, specifically third-party content to a users feed. Social media apps content recommendations are a cornerstone of how the largest tech companies operate, but the case could pin responsibility for recommended user content on those companies, completely upend the current ways most companies do business.

SCOTUS had declined to hear a separate but similar case revolving around Section 230, but the nations top court often hears cases when theres disagreement in lower courts. As noted in the original petition, five appeals court judges have said that 230 creates immunity for cases involving recommended content, while three have argued to varying degrees that it doesnt.

[Internet companies] constantly direct such recommendations, in one form or another, at virtually every adult and child in the United States who uses social media, Gonzalezs attorneys argue in the original April appeal. Application of section 230 to such recommendations removes all civil liability incentives for interactive computer services to eschew recommending such harmful materials, and denies redress to victims who could have shown that those recommendations had caused their injuries, or the deaths of their loved ones.

But lawyers for Google have argued that the company regularly takes down flagged videos, and that the Paris attacker just happened to be active on YouTube and once appeared in an IS propaganda video. The company said its multiple recommendation widgets are the best way to help users navigate the vast amount of data online.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas previously said about Section 230: We should consider whether the text of this increasingly important statue aligns with the current state of immunity enjoyed by internet platforms.

Conservatives and liberals alike have both attacked Section 230, though for very different reasons. California has passed a bill designed to protect kids under 18 from tech companies ongoing data collection. Some pro-tech groups have said such a bill could infringe against 230, though other bills put out by Republican-controlled states are much more explicit in their antagonism toward websites speech immunity.

At the same time Gonzalez is heading for a final showdown in the Supreme Court, conservatives in Texas and Florida are putting much of their anti-big tech initiative behind bills meant to restrict social media companies from banning accounts or moderating user content.

Floridas anti-deplatforming law, put on hold by the courts in 2021, was shot down by the 11th circuit court earlier this year.Last month, trade groups representing big tech and the Florida AG petitioned for a case regarding the bill to be heard by SCOTUS. On Sept. 23, Floridas Attorney General Ashley Moody submitted an appeal to the Supreme Court, arguing in a 111-page document that online spaces are the modern town square and that these social media companies are censoring content that could be considered political speech necessary for the marketplace of ideas.

Of course, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has had difficulty himself with social media. His aides have been banned from Twitter for asking supporters to drag a journalist who covered the presidential hopeful.

Another bill, Texas H.B. 20, recently found new life after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals decided platforms want to eliminate speechnot promote or protect it. This is a common right-wing talking point that several legal scholars and tech company trade groups told Gizmodo is meant to have a chilling effect on techs ability to moderate hate speech or cut down on disinformation online. Texas had previously put the matter up to the Supreme Court, but in a 5-4 decision the justices put a hold on the bill and sent it back down to the lower courts. Floridas appeal directly referenced the Texas decision to extol the merits of its own anti-content moderation bill.

Both Florida and Texas loose definitions of content moderation and their interpretations of Section 230 could have ramifications far beyond social media companies, as pointed out by Corbin Barthold, internet policy counsel for TechFreedom, a tech-minded free enterprise think tank. The law effectively targets any platform with more than 50 million active users, which could even include sites like Wikipedia.

The question of so-called censorship in both the Florida and Texas laws has come down to interpreting the 1985 case Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which required companies to disclose information about their services. In a phone interview, Barthold told Gizmodo that up until now, every time SCOTUS has referenced Zauderer, justices have limited the scope of the ruling to speech in advertising, but without firm precedent lower courts have used the case for other forms of speech.

And because the 5th and 11th circuit courts have disagreed so heavily, Barthold said the Supreme Court will likely need to bring up this case as well. Whatever the court decides next on Section 230 will likely have a vast impact on any future decision regarding social media companies liability for the posts that appear on their webpages and whether deleting any of those posts would be considered censorship.

If a company like Twitter suddenly finds that it is held liable for each post on its site, the company says that its options would become limited to either folding entirely or conducting extreme amounts vetting and content moderation, much more than already goes on. This, of course, isnt exactly what conservatives want. Many, like Colorado Rep. Laura Boebertwho has been previously banned from Twitter for posting disinformationmuch prefer it if social media companies were completely restricted from holding on to the ban hammer.

Original post:

Supreme Court Is Putting the Future of Section 230 Protections on Its Docket - Gizmodo

We also want to be able to collect money without one person being held responsible for the whole campaign's actions we have collective responsibility.

After the truckers in Canada got their GoFundMe donations withheld, and in light of our previous experiences, we sought a system that wouldn't be able to withhold donations once theyve been made.

Such cases of extra-judicial action take a toll on legitimate activity and represent a significant means to throttle political opposition.

No matter your political persuasion, theres bound to be a cause you sympathise with that has faced the undemocratic impulses of monetary gatekeepers.

Arguably, centralised crowdfunding sites for example, sites like GoFundMe with a payments firm like Stripe or Visa controlling the flow of funds are more likely to succumb to this as there is a single point of attack.

Uncertainty about income drives campaigners to find alternatives to the payment majors.

Ukraine DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation) uses blockchain systems to raise and distribute funds for the war with Russia. It is a grassroots network that has funnelled over $8m, donated in Ethereum cryptocurrency, to directly assist military and humanitarian efforts with the blessing of the Ukrainian state.

The DAOs team say that the transparency and efficiency of raising cryptocurrency makes it an attractive choice for gathering cash fast. Efficiency may also refer to avoiding the arduous bureaucracy typically involved in financing military operations. This kind of fundraising breaks new ground by allowing ordinary people to mobilise resources for serious geopolitical projects.

In a similar way campaigners for Julian Assange raised over $35m with a mission to seek justice for the WikiLeaks founder.

Liberate Hemp now takes donations in cryptocurrency first and foremost due to the precarity of e-commerce involving hemp. The only easy approach that met our needs were donations direct to our crypto wallet.

So what practical options exist for campaigns stunted by these murky arbitration processes?

There are some, albeit limited, solutions, from cryptocurrencies to crowdfunding platforms designed to withstand take-downs.

Prashan Paramanathan of Chuffed, which hosts campaigns such as Extinction Rebellion, explains that his platform allows fundraising so long as it is not to support criminal activity. Unfortunately, he said, the UK and other jurisdictions have been broadening the definition of various forms of protest as criminal activity, which puts platforms in a tricky situation.

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How to fundraise when the powerful want to stop you - Open Democracy

Image: Piers Morgan Live

Piers Morgan has gone absolutely ham on Andrew Tate as the now-rejected icon of toxic masculinity made a rare television appearance to discuss the many accusations of misogyny against him.

Tate made headlines in the first half of 2022 after a wave of misogynistic remarks were made by him across his broad social media empire. Such classic hits include younger women being more attractive because theyve been to clubs and had less sex, women belong in the home, and cant drive. Hes a man out of time, with the time being the Stone Age.

In a classic bit of Piers Morgan-ry, hes invited the mostly deplatformed boxer onto his live show Piers Morgan Uncensored to discuss his deplatforming, his views, and given him a chance to defend himself: because Tate really needs a platform to defend himself. Morgan didnt hold back, treating Tate with about as much respect as he does Meghan Markle.

Morgan accosted him repeatedly for his misogynistic views, but Tate refused to apologize for any remarks, claiming hes been repeatedly misunderstood, however would word such misogynistic statements differently nowadays.

No, I am not sorry, thats the point Im making. I would say them differently perhaps [] I recognise that with massive fame you have to be more careful about being misconstrued. I still believe the things I say. I do not want to be a negative force in the world. I also understand that I am a man who has led a very difficult and nuanced life and I am capable of making nuanced points that are maybe misunderstood by teenagers.

Having Morgan of all people take Tate to task for his ridiculous views really feels like the classic headline from Clickhole, Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point. Morgan has made himself a menace away from his homeland in recent months, with the highly combustible television personality spending a while on far-right broadcaster Sky News in Australia.

When youre being accosted for your actions by someone who was allegedly involved in the News of the World phone hacking scandal, you know your reputation really is lower than a snakes belly. The entire interview will be available to view on Oct. 7.

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Piers Morgan Has Just Grilled Andrew Tate in a Live TV Interview - We Got This Covered

Hello and welcome to Thursday.

What were following Two Floridians are dominating the political headlines this week and its not clear where any of this ends.

Bring on the lawyers Donald Trump's legal battles were front and center on Wednesday as New York Attorney General Tish James filed a civil lawsuit that accused the former president, his company and his family members of an astounding amount of fraud through his real estate empire. Then last night the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals including two judges appointed by Trump sided with the Department of Justice in blocking part of a lower courts ruling on materials removed from Trumps Palm Beach home of Mar-A-Lago.

Response Trump appeared on Fox News last night where he maintained he had declassified the documents at the heart of the dispute with the FBI although the interview appears to have been done prior to the latest ruling.

Worth noting Then, of course, theres the highly publicized effort by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to transport migrants from Texas to other parts of the country. A story that moved last night by the Miami Herald includes reporting from Texas that suggests that a plane of migrants paid for by the state of Florida was indeed scheduled to go to Delaware this week but was then scrapped at the last minute.

Recording The Herald interviewed migrants in San Antonio who explained the effort to recruit them for a flight only to find out that it had been abruptly canceled. The news organization even had video that captured one of the encounters with one of those helping recruit migrants.

Whats going on? This raises continued questions about the transport program many of which the DeSantis administration is not responding to including what a second payment of $950,000 to the company that organized last weeks flights to Martha Vineyard actually paid for. NBC News' Marc Caputo reported last night that the governors office denied the money was used to pay for an empty plane to fly from Texas to New Jersey. (Thats where the same plane used to ferry migrants to Marthas Vineyard wound up on Tuesday.)

Focus The migrant flights have commanded a great a deal of attention for DeSantis as he has defended the operation that he says is being done to send a message about the surge of migrants entering the country many of whom he insists want to come to Florida. Last weeks effort triggered an investigation by a Texas sheriff who is an elected Democrat and sparked a lawsuit in Boston.

Weighing in The lawsuit, by the way, drew the ire of Sen. Marco Rubio who took to Twitter with a video where he stated America is apparently the only nation on earth where you can enter by violating our laws and then a week later sue the government whose laws you violated." It was a much stronger defense of DeSantis actions than Rubio had done last week, but it also drew a retort from his Democratic opponent Rep. Val Demings. This is a shameless and cynical stunt from Marco Rubio. We are sick and tired of the political games he plays with Floridas immigrant community, she said on Twitter.

WHERE'S RON? Nothing official announced for Gov. DeSantis

Have a tip, story, suggestion, birthday, anniversary, new job, or any other nugget for Playbook? Get in touch: [emailprotected]

ON THE GROUND Operatives linked to DeSantis promised to fly migrants to Delaware but left them stranded, by Miami Heralds Sarah Blaskey and Nicholas Nehamas: She brought them food and a message: They were being sent to Delaware. The bus to the airport would be leaving at 5 a.m. the next day Tuesday, Sept. 20 she said, according to interviews with six migrants housed at the hotel. The migrants didnt know that they were being swept up in an operation that bore striking similarities to one organized the week before by operatives for Gov. Ron DeSantis that ended with 48 Venezuelan migrants dropped off on a Massachusetts island. Or that the trip to Delaware being dangled would never happen.

The difference between DeSantiss migrant flights and the Biden administrations, by Washington Post Aaron Blake

Crist joins Hispanic leaders criticizing DeSantis for migrant flights, by USA Today Network-Floridas John Kennedy

JUST SCRATCHING THE SURFACE Trump, company and family members sued by New York AG over alleged fraud scheme, by POLITICOs Josh Gerstein, Erin Durkin and Kyle Cheney: New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed suit against former President Donald Trump, three of his adult children and his business empire, accusing them of large-scale fraudulent financial practices and seeking to bar them from real estate transactions for the next five years. The attorney generals civil suit alleges more than a decade of deception, including billions of dollars in falsified net worth, as part of an effort by Trump to minimize his companies tax bills while winning favorable terms from banks and insurance companies.

THIS IS JUST THE CHERRY ON TOP He knows how to play the victim card perfectly: Why Trumps legal woes only make him stronger, by POLITICOS David Siders and Meredith McGraw: But to Republicans, after Trumps presidency and its aftermath, the bombshell was simply more of the same. Just as they rallied around Trump when the FBI searched his estate at Mar-a-Lago, they saw little reason to conclude the New York lawsuit would do anything politically but help Trump with his base. I dont see this working in terms of impacting the perceptions of the president, said Dave Carney, a national Republican strategist based in New Hampshire. He is under attack by the left, theyre using all the tools of government, theyre politicizing the legal system this is just the cherry on top.

REBUFFED Trump suffers setback as appeals court rejects Cannon ruling, by POLITICOs Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein: A three-judge appeals court panel has granted the Justice Departments request to block aspects of U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannons ruling that delayed a criminal investigation into highly sensitive documents seized from former President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate. The panel ruled that Cannon, a Trump appointee, erred when she temporarily prevented federal prosecutors from using the roughly 100 documents marked as classified recovered from Trumps estate as part of a criminal inquiry.

Trump: I could declassify documents by thinking about it, by POLITICOs Olivia Olander

Tish James just sued Trump but theyve been at it for years, by POLITICOs Erin Durkin

Trumps allies in Congress slam AG James, by POLITICOs Olivia Beavers, Jordain Carney and Nancy Vu

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ CALLS OUT DEM House Democrat slams Tlaib for antisemitic remarks on Israel, by The Hills Mychael Schnell: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) on Wednesday slammed Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) for claiming that individuals cannot be considered progressive if they support Israel. In remarks at an American Muslims for Palestine event on Tuesday, Tlaib who is Palestinian American spoke out against the apartheid government of Israel before vowing to push back on the idea that individuals can be progressive and pro-Israel.

Response Wasserman Schultz denounced Tlaibs comments, labeling them antisemitic and arguing that progressivism and support for Israel are not mutually exclusive. The outrageous progressive litmus test on Israel by @RashidaTlaib is nothing short of antisemitic. Proud progressives do support Israels right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state. Suggesting otherwise is shameful and dangerous. Divisive rhetoric does not lead to peace, she wrote on Twitter.

Matt Gaetz says U.S. should bomb Mexicos Sinaloa drug cartel over Fentanyl Trafficking: Not kidding, by Mediaites Kipp Jones

NEXT CHAPTER Fried starting political committee focused on abortion rights candidates, 2024 ballot measure, by POLITICOs Matt Dixon: Fresh off a loss in Floridas Democratic gubernatorial primary, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried said on Wednesday that shes starting a new political committee focused on supporting abortion rights causes. The committee, called Wont Back Down, will begin raising money immediately with the goal of both helping female candidates who support abortion rights and getting a measure on the ballot in 2024 protecting the right to get an abortion in Florida.

Do what it takes We dont have a one election cycle problem, we have a future of Florida problem, Fried said in an interview announcing her new fundraising committee. So, we are going to do what I did in 2018, we are going to go to red areas and talk to Republican and independent women, and we are also going to do what it takes to win the future.

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried speaks with members of the media on Aug. 18, 2022, in Gainesville, Fla. | Gerardo Mora/Getty Images

DUNN LEADS LAWSON A new poll released by the Rep. Al Lawson-backing Southern Roots PAC and shared with Playbook finds that Rep. Neal Dunn is leading Lawson 49 percent to 43 percent in the race for Floridas 2nd Congressional District. But the poll shows a much tighter race after positive and negative messages were told to likely voters about the two candidates. Dunns lead shrinks to 49 percent to 47 percent, which is inside the margin of error.

Lawsons existing North Florida district was dismantled by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature at the urging of DeSantis and his home in Tallahassee was placed inside Dunns reconfigured district. Lawson opted to challenge Dunn. David Binder Research surveyed 600 likely voters by telephone and online between Sept. 14 and Sept. 18. The margin of error is plus/minus 4 percent.

STAYING ON MESSAGE After abortion ruling, Demings tries to paint Republicans as anti-freedom, by McClatchy D.C.s Alex Roarty: In the three months since the Supreme Courts landmark Dobbs ruling revoked the right to an abortion, the Democrats nominee for Senate in Florida has argued that Republicans led by her opponent GOP Sen. Marco Rubio are attempting to limit or altogether eliminate the freedom once afforded to women, replacing personal decisions with ones mandated by state or federal government. In statements, campaign-trail speeches, and widely broadcast ads, the congresswoman has repeatedly leaned into the message, hoping it can win over not just core Democrats but also the valuable swing voters her campaign needs to attract in droves ahead of Novembers election.

Mayors race will have most diverse field of candidates in Jacksonville history, by Florida Times-Unions David Bauerlein and Hanna Holthaus

MUMS THE WORD Florida Republican legislative leaders mum on DeSantis migrant flights, by POLITICOs Matt Dixon: Republican leaders in the Florida Legislature have not come to Gov. Ron DeSantis side as he faced an onslaught of criticism from opponents over his decision to fly mostly Venezuelan migrants from Texas to Marthas Vineyard. They have, in fact, been silent. DeSantis decision to use a portion of $12 million lawmakers put in the state budget to fly mostly Venezuelan migrants seeking asylum from Texas to other parts of the country has sparked a national partisan clash, with Democrats and many immigration activists calling the move not just immoral, but illegal and many DeSantis-aligned conservatives cheering on the move as a way to highlight President Joe Bidens border policies.

NEXT STEP Florida appeals 11th Circuit social media ruling to SCOTUS, by POLITICOs Rebecca Kern: Floridas attorney general filed an appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn a May decision by a federal court that had struck down major parts of a Florida law banning social media companies from deplatforming political candidates for violating the First Amendment. The May decision by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals conflicts with a ruling last week by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld a similar Texas social media law. the Supreme Court agrees to take up the appeal, it would mark the first time the highest court will have weighed in on the underlying issues at play in the 11th Circuit case as to whether social media platforms handling of user content is protected by the First Amendment.

Nearly 400 veterans have applied to become teachers in Florida under DeSantis-backed program, by News4Jaxs Travis Gibson

GO AWAY Its very early but could a second Hurricane Hermine get into the Gulf of Mexico? by Tallahassee Democrats Karl Etters: A tropical system making its way west off the coast of South America has the potential to be named Hermine. And its forecasted path could bring it into the Gulf of Mexico, much like the storm that walloped Tallahassee and the Big Bend in 2016. Naming of storms is on a six-year cycle and Ryan Truchelut, chief meteorologist with WeatherTiger, said he hasn't been able to find any instances where consecutively named storms have similar impact zones. It would be unusual for a storm with the same name to threaten the same area, he said.

CRISIS, WHAT CRISIS? Citizens to grow to 15 percent of Florida marketplace, by POLITICOs Matt Dixon: Citizens Property Insurance, the states insurer of last resort, is once again over 1 million policies and is expected to comprise 15 percent of the states residential insurance market by the end of the year. That stark assessment came Wednesday from Citizens president and CEO Barry Gilway to the organizations board of directors. Concerns about Citizens have long been a focus of lawmakers, but little has been done to stop its rolls from swelling as other insurers go belly up or stop doing business in the state.

I WAS DISSATISFIED Shalala, UHealth exec she fired square off in trial over bitter academic soap opera, by Miami Heralds Jay Weaver: An academic soap opera is unfolding in Miami federal court this week with a plot revolving around turf wars and a blame game between University of Miami president Donna Shalala and a top medical school executive who was hired and then quickly fired a decade ago. The UM medical schools former chief operating officer, Jack Lord, who is seeking millions in damages, testified Tuesday at a wrongful termination trial that Shalala treated him in a crappy way when she fired him. Shalala, the prominent former university leader and ex-Miami congresswoman, countered in her testimony Wednesday that Lord was a destructive force akin to a bull in a china shop.

SLAM BOOK Mean Girls: Suspended School Board member blasts grand jury report as misleading and malicious, by South Florida Sun-Sentinels Scott Travis: A former Broward School Board member has blasted the statewide grand jury report that led to her suspension, describing it as a Mean Girls slam book and a political maneuver for Gov. Ron DeSantis. Still, Donna Korn expressed confidence this week that DeSantis will allow her to keep a countywide School Board seat should she win it again in a Nov. 8 runoff. The governors office has made no such promises.

FIUs only candidate for president: Interim president who had vowed not to stay on for long, by Miami Heralds Jimena Tavel

Artemis I passes tanking test ahead of potential launch next week, by Orlando Sentinels Richard Tribou

Hialeah cops fired 122 times in killing motorist. City to pay $500,000 to settle lawsuit, by Miami Heralds David Ovalle

Teacher was suspended for hitting kids with yardsticks. Now he may be fired for chokeholds, by Palm Beach Posts Katherine Kokal

Hes a Jan. 6 defendant, a racist livestreamer and new Tampa Bay resident, by Tampa Bay Times Tracey McManus: Anthime Gionet appears behind the microphone with his signature Pit Viper glasses and the same bleached hair that was on display when he livestreamed the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection from inside the U.S. Capitol. Fans know him as Baked Alaska, a nickname referring to his home state, and follow along in the chat box as he shouts out each one by their usernames. The host and his audience spend more than six hours a night together via livestream, time mostly filled with him playing video games on a shared screen. But he also leads hours-long discussions on politics and culture, spreading an ideology where white Christian men are under threat and women shouldnt be leaders.

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Cloudflare blocked service to Kiwi Farms, a notoriously transphobic forum with users that stalked, harassed, and doxed vulnerable people since it started in 2013, on Saturday, according to an announcement made by Cloudflare co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince. The decision follows weeks of public pressure for Cloudflare to drop its protection service to the site.

We just blocked Kiwifarms, Prince tweeted. The threats on the site escalated enough in the last 48 hours that, in spite of proactively working with law enforcement, it became enough of an imminent emergency we could no longer wait for them to act.

Cloudflare published more details about this announcement on its company blog.

This comes just one week after Cloudflare defended the choice to keep the site as a customer.

In August, Twitch streamer Clara Sorrenti, known as Keffals, was the target of transphobic raiding and swattingthe dangerous internet harassment tactic involving prank calls to authorities that prompt police to send a SWAT team to someones home. Sorrenti alleges that Kiwi Farms members organized this attack, and has been campaigning for Cloudflare, the internet infrastructure company that protects Kiwi Farms from DDoS attacks among other services, to drop the website as a customer.

In place of the website is an error: Due to an imminent and emergency threat to human life, the content of this site is blocked from being accessed through Cloudflares infrastructure.

Kiwi Farms was reportedly founded with the purpose of trolling and harassing a webcomic artist, and has since grown to become one of the biggest message boards for harassing and targeting specific people and groups, especially trans people and women.

Cloudflares terms of use forbid content that discloses sensitive personal information, incites or exploits violence, or is intended to defraud the public. In the past, Cloudflare has removed service from vile websites, including neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer in 2017, and terrorist manifesto hotbed 8chan in 2019, effectively deplatforming and these websites and their members off the internet.

In 2019, Kiwi Farms founder Joshua Moon refused to cooperate with New Zealand officials when they requested he hand over information about posts related to the Christchurch mass shooting on the forum. Its also allegedly been connected to several completed suicides by the people its users targeted. Following Sorrentis campaign to shut the site down and have Cloudflare drop it, more people have come forward on social media to share how the sites members harassed and doxed them.

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Jos Marichal is a professor of political science at California Lutheran University.

Does Twitter have a censorship problem or a misinformation problem? On September 13th, 2022, a handful of House Republicans demanded that the Biden administration hand over to Congress selected communication between the administration and tech companies.The members of Congress accuse the administration of coordinating with Facebook and Twitter to censor stories and Tweets regarding COVID-19 under the guise of preventing misinformation. While preventing misinformation is a critical issue, its not Twitters only problem. Equally important is the question of how we can better argue with one another without creating more hatred and antagonism, or as political philosopher Morton Schoolman put it, how can Twitter eliminate violence towards difference while at the same time standing for democratic principles?

Over the last two years, Twitter has taken steps to reduce the amount of misinformation users see. In 2021, the company claims it adjusted its algorithm to reduce exposure to Tweets by users whose posts reflect behaviors that distort and detract from the public conversation. While this addition by subtraction approach may have the effect of creating more polite, or even more accurate, discourse (along with keeping users interested in the site), its effect on democratic health may be as bad as its benefits. While eliminating anti-democratic or simply false posts are an important tool for maintaining a healthy public, the deeper problem with Twitter lies is the way users argue politics with one another.

We Twitter users are generally not nice to each other when we disagree. We are often not generous in presenting the opposing sides views, or in presenting our own views to those whom weve identified as bad-faith actors. We presume nefarious motives about our opponents. This leads many to argue that the problem with social media is too much arguing. But agonistic political theorists like Chantal Mouffe maintain that arguing is not only good for politics, its what defines it. Argument highlights the contest between reciprocity [with our in-group] and hostility [towards our out-group] that creates politics. Without this contestation, there is no politics. The end of contestation means the end of politics. On issues where there is no grounds for agreement, our only non-violent/non-coercive option in a democratic society is to keep arguing.

But if argument is essential for politics, does that extend to invidious trolling or bad-faith efforts to demean opponents? Another agonist political theorist, William Connolly, suggests that a lack of generosity and distrust towards fellow citizens (not institutions) breeds the ressentiment or disengagement from the political community that serves as the hallmark to democratic backsliding. Indeed, the more platforms become toxic, the more they censor themselves. In unpublished research I am working on with my colleagues Don Waisanen and Carrie Anne Platt, we find that the vast majority of Facebook users we surveyed about political discussion employ more avoidance and censoring strategies online when compared to their off-line behavior.

In other work, my colleague Richard Neve and I found that many Twitter conversation threads had practically no alternative perspectives offered. We studied the top 75 most retweeted users on a given day and found comment threads largely devoid of counter-arguments. Eliminating counterarguments, or even misinformation, might make for more engagement on Twitter, but it does not help users engage in productive arguments. Former Twitter boss Jack Dorsey admitted the limited nature of the companys approach in a series of Tweets in 2018:

We arent proud of how people have taken advantage of our service, or our inability to address it fast enough While working to fix it, weve been accused of apathy, censorship, political bias, and optimizing for our business and share price instead of the concerns of society. This is not who we are, or who we ever want to be Weve focused most of our efforts on removing content against our terms, instead of building a systemic framework to help encourage more healthy debate, conversations, and critical thinking. This is the approach we now need.

Over the past four years, however, Twitter has kept its focus on misinformation, understandably because of the substantial challenge of electoral and COVID-19 misinformation. But as Dorsey recognized, any effort to increase the overall health of political discourse on Twitter will need sustained critical reflection, development and implementation. This task is not technical in nature. The value of political engagement cannot easily be judged without taking into consideration substantive considerations concerning meaningful speech.

Agonism gives us a different starting point for addressing Dorseys concerns. A key distinction between agonism and antagonism is the latters commitment to a political association with the other. An antagonistic discourse is one in which one sees opponents as an existential threat rather than as a competitor.

What would an agonistic, good arguing Twitter look like? How could we add to, rather than subtract, from the plurality of voices on Twitter? Rather than have a policy of subtraction, I propose Twitter use its algorithms to identify antagonistic threads and populate them with orthogonal perspectives and narratives that force users to draw out their own value positions and confront them with generously presented counter-arguments. Even if these orthogonal stories, data points or arguments were largely ignored, it would remind users that there are reasonable and plausible counter-narratives in the public discourse.

This eat your broccoli approach is not a cure-all solution. This is a uniquely fragile point in time for liberal democracy. The authoritarian impulse in many countries to re-establish a sense of hierarchy and order undermined by globalization and cultural and demographic change often plays out on social media platforms. Calls to redress the injustices of racism, colonialism, and sexism and other axes of oppression are often met with threatening and dehumanizing language. There is a persuasive case to be made that Twitter and other platforms should simply eliminate discourses that reinforce systems of oppression.

There is indeed value in deplatforming content that promotes violence or undemocratic views. But the job of repairing a public sphere cant simply be left at removing noxious content. Even with the mixed record of successwith deplatforming, the unwillingness of Twitter users to meaningfully engage with difference remains. Most people on Twitter do not want agonistic engagement. They prefer to have their worldviews amplified. Or they come to platforms like Twitter for the thrill of abstract, drive by conflict. On platforms like Twitter, argument is disembodied from its subject. There is no ability to find the commonalities that would undergird a sense of political association. Hence, disagreement is an ambient, disembodied provocation. It is a hostile challenge to ones sense of emotional and sometimes physical safety.

Re-embodied in place, people disagree on all sorts of things and get on with the work of living collectively. Those who disagree on student loan forgiveness might share a love for the New York Knicks or a passion for needlepoint. But these commonalities would only organically emerge from being in community. That is something that Twitter cannot do.

Dr. Marichal is a professor of political science at California Lutheran University. He specializes in studying the role that social media plays in restructuring political behavior and institutions. In 2012, he publishedFacebook Democracy (Routledge Press)which looks at the role that the popular social network played on the formation of political identity across different countries. His most recent work (with Richard Neve and Brian Collins) looks at they ways in which social media platforms encourage antagonistic political discourse and how they could be regulated.In addition, Dr. Marichal (with collaborators) is using computational social science methods on a number of projects including an examination of fracking debates on Twitter, a study of candidate branding in 2016, and a study on political talk on Facebook. In 2018, Dr. Marichal organized a mini-conference on Algorithmic Politics for the Western Political Science Association. Currently, he is working on abook that looks at the damaging effects of algorithms on democracy by creating an algorithmic mentality among citizens.

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The culture wars are, to quote Pat Buchanan, a struggle "for the soul of America," and they've been consuming our political discourse for centuries. As Andrew Hartman writes, "the history of America, for better or worse, is largely a history of debates about the idea of America." Are we a racist country? Should gay people be allowed to marry? What about gun control, abortion, transgender medicine, affirmative action, equal pay for women, book banning, deplatforming, cancel culture, safe spaces and so-called wokeness?

Fought on many fronts, the outcome of this war can have to state the obvious profound real-world consequences. Last year, there were 693 mass shootings that left 703 people dead and 2,842 injured, and a recent study found that overturning Roe v. Wade could cause a "21% increase in the number of pregnancy-related deaths," with this disproportionately affecting Black women. Children go through active shooter drills in school, and transgender people are sometimes denied the treatments prescribed by their doctors. Pay inequality makes being a single mother difficult, and the question which books our children are allowed to read could shape a whole generation's understanding of the American project. The list goes on.

How, then, should one engage in the culture wars? What actions can one take to make a difference? Or is all of this really just a distraction? Is the best way to bring about real change in the world to sidestep the often-heated public squabbles over values and ideas?

These are among the central questions that Dr. Liam Kofi Bright, a professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics, addresses in his fascinating new paper "White Psychodrama." Bright's focus isn't the culture wars in general, but the particular battle among white people over race relations in contemporary America.

To understand what's going on here, Bright offers an insightful breakdown of the situation, which he conceptualizes as a cast of characters, on the one hand, and a narrative that gives rise to their disputes, on the other. Let's begin with the characters:

First, you have the Repenters, who "see the group they identify with as having committed horrible crimes globally and domestically, and they are ever so aware of the ways in which present material conditions generate continued deprivation for black people alongside relative comfort for many white people." As such, Repenters are wracked by "an overwhelming sense of guilt," a hard-to-shake feeling that one is blameworthy for having benefited from historical injustices, and for continuing to benefit from the racist systems currently in place.

Repenters are wracked by "an overwhelming sense of guilt," a hard-to-shake feeling that one is blameworthy for having benefited from historical injustices, and for continuing to benefit from racist systems.

To ease this guilt, Repenters might encourage their workplaces to openly celebrate diversity, make a point of following people of color on social media and supporting Black-owned local businesses. Some will seek guidance about proper racial etiquette from books like Robin DiAngelo's "White Fragility." Through such "self-work," by acknowledging their special position in society and trying to improve the world around them in small but meaningful ways, Repenters aim to foster "a positive self image" as someone on the right side of history, and hence not personally or at least not actively part of the problem.

Next, you have the Repressers. This group is keen on downplaying the importance of race in America. They advocate for a "colorblind" approach to understanding inequality, and are quick to dismiss those who single out skin pigmentation as "playing the race card." Repressers worry that people are "too easily offended" over "mere" peccadillos like wearing Blackface at Halloween, and suggest that those who whine about such infractions fail to appreciate just how far America has come from the bad old days of slavery and Jim Crow.

Our country has made great progress with race relations, in this view, and we currently live in the most racially tolerant society ever. Sure, there may still be instances of racism here and there, but Repressers insist that these are individual rather than systemic in nature. Hence, talk of "white privilege" is overblown and only makes the problem worse by foregrounding racial identity. Repressers deal with the problem of guilt not by repenting for their whiteness but by repressing any discussion of race in the first place.

As you may have experienced first-hand, these two characters cannot stand to be in the same room together. They don't get along, and never will. Imagine a "woke" progressive white person in the same room with Dennis Prager or Sam Harris. How long could this last before a shouting match erupts?

Yet there is a third character in the fight as well, an important supporting role played by well-educated nonwhites whom Bright dubs the "PoC intelligentsia." As he describes the situation, not without amusement:

Of course the rest of us do not simply sit by and watch the whites duke it out amongst themselves. If nothing else they still have ownership of the stuff and a democratic majority, so most of us are dependent on them for making a living. How then have the PoC intelligentsia people of colour sufficiently engaged in politics to be tapped into the white culture war and the historical narrative underpinning it responded to the opportunities and challenges presented thereby? With a dexterous entrepreneurial spirit! Which is to say, by cashing in.

This "cashing in" is possible because both Repenters and Repressers draw from the PoC intelligentsia to support their perspectives. On the one hand, PoC intellectuals function as "bearers of black thinkers' insight" who are willing to affirm the guilt-stricken worldview of Repenters. On the other, one finds a handful of prominent Black thinkers no less inclined "to give voice to an intelligent version of the Represser narrative."

Repressers admitthere may still be instances of racism here and there, but insist that these are individual rather than systemic in nature. Hence, talk of "white privilege" is overblown, and only makes the problem worse.

The mainstream media (including Fox News), which are largely white-owned, will eagerly prop up the voices of PoC intellectuals in each camp, and indeed "a vital part of Repenter strategy for alleviating guilt [is] that they listen to such voices." "Repressers are not as tied to this strategy," Bright notes, "but if one is troubled by accusations of racism the fact that black thinkers agree with your perspective will be salient and interesting."

Here we have the cast of characters in the American culture war over race. But there's a twist: despite the obvious differences between Repenters and Repressers, these characters actually have a lot in common. For example, they both accept that the ideal that we should aim for is a racially egalitarian society in which, to borrow Martin Luther King Jr.'s immortal words, people should "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

They also concur that America is far from this ideal today. They will generally acknowledge facts such as that the median net worth of Black households in 2019 was $24,100, compared to $188,200 for white families, Black people still greatly outnumber white people in U.S. prisons, and the unemployment rate for Black people is nearly twice as high as for white people. Hence, both characters agree that while America should be egalitarian, it is in fact far from this: There's a glaring mismatch between reality and ideal, and that's a problem.

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The defining difference between these two groups is how they react to this problem. As alluded to above, Repenters react by feeling guilty and trying to assuage this feeling through attitudinal shifts and everyday acts. In contrast, Repressers react by trying to avoid the question of race altogether by suppressing talk of racial differences, which they disparage as "identity politics."

Yet in both cases the dual strategies of assuaging and avoiding are ultimately aimed at one thing: relieving the cognitive dissonance produced by the aforementioned mismatch, which is why Bright labels this a "psychodrama." As he writes:

Repenters and Repressers are engaged in a fundamental conflict, but it is a conflict over how to psychologically manage the results of living in a materially deeply unequal society, not a conflict about how or whether to reduce that material inequality.

This leads to one of the most important points of Bright's article: Even though both characters affirm the ideal of racial egalitarianism, both are invested in perpetuating the status quo as are, to a lesser degree, the PoC intellectuals, who personally profit off the endless white psychodrama. It's one thing for Repenters to put a "Black Lives Matter" sign on their front lawns after a white police officer kills an unarmed Black person, but quite another to, say, support "defunding" police departments. After all, Bright notes, defunding the police "could actually upset the ability of the police to perform the social function of protecting their lives and property."

Meanwhile, Repressers will respond to such incidents by looking for any reason at all to minimize the role of race. They will insist, for example, that the police officer is just one bad apple in the orchard. The problem isn't the police, but some particular police, which makes calling for police departments to be defunded completely absurd. Don't blame the institution for the actions of single individuals!

Both sides affirm the ideal of racial egalitarianism, but in fact both are invested in perpetuating the status quo as are, to a lesser degree, the PoC intellectuals who profit off endless white psychodrama.

The result of all this is that nothing changes. Neither Repressers nor Repenters are keen on the sort of fundamental, systemic renovations of America's social, political and economic infrastructure needed to actually solve the problem to fix the mismatch between reality and ideal. As Bright makes the point, neither side's strategies "involve surrendering white wealth and are thus relatively advantageous to white elites when compared to seriously redistributive policies that might actually advance the material welfare of black people."

In a phrase, the culture war over race tends to resist rather than promote change. It's a psychodrama among whites that both feeds off and sustains the status quo of material disadvantages, inequalities, and injustices experienced by people of color.

So how does one break free of this cycle? One possibility begins with this question: Did you in any way feel seen while reading the profiles of Repenters and Repressers? Was it uncomfortable? As Bright observes, while "none of the above characters are entirely unsympathetic, in so far as one sees oneself in them it is probably with a profound sense of unease."

Speaking for myself, yes. I have at times fit the Repenter stereotype. I've gone out of my way to signal, both to myself and others, that my concern for racial equality and justice is deeply held, genuine and passionate. I've preferentially shopped at Black-owned stores, tried to amplify PoC voices on social media and elsewhere, and included a "BLM" hashtag on my Twitter profile. In the most minimal sense, I've "done my part" to "not be a part of the problem," and in the process I felt a little better about myself as a white person.

That counts for something. But the crucial point is that none of these actions address the underlying root causes of the reality-ideal mismatch. As Bright told me by email, "it is certainly worth investing some of your time in doing something to ameliorate things where they are hurting you or those around you." But when such efforts take the place of working toward real change, they are not nearly as commendable as they might feel to people like me. "Please don't pretend that you doing" such things, Bright continues,

is really in my interests. The psychological and communal work of coping with a sense of guilt and unease is something yinz will have to work out for yourselves; but it should be done in tandem with, rather than in lieu of, work to redistribute resources and control to the multi-racial proletariat.

Hence, a practical upshot of Bright's paper is that by seeing oneself in the characterological mirrors that he holds up to our faces, white people, in particular, can begin to extricate themselves from the never-ending, status-quo-perpetuating psychodrama of the culture wars. After all, as Bright notes, "earnestly trying to win the culture war in the sense of achieving victory for either Repenter or Represser is a fool's errand; if those are the teams then the only winning move is not to play."

Bright argues that "earnestly trying to win the culture war ... is a fool's errand." If Repenters and Repressers are the competing teams, "the only winning move is not to play."

Fortunately, though, these are not the only teams. Bright points to yet another archetype that he identifies with himself, the ironically detached narrator of the drama (to paraphrase his words). He calls this fourth character the Non-Aligned person, a term borrowed from the Cold War, during which countries not formally allied with the Western or Eastern blocs were part of the "non-aligned movement."

Unlike Repenters, Repressers, and the PoC intelligentsia, Non-Aligned persons resist getting swept up in the white psychodrama over race relations in America. They understand that the culture wars cannot be won, are perpetuated by the "racialised psychopathology" that they simultaneously generate and hence are nothing more than a distraction from what really matters.

The Non-Aligned person thus aims "to act in such a way that they can earnestly see themselves as sensibly working towards the eradication of the material inequalities between racial groups." Their goal is to secure "the physical and cultural conditions necessary for nonwhite people to enjoy republican freedom."

What might this look like in practice? One example might be putting the police under community control, an idea advocated by the Black Panther Party 50 years ago, perhaps with the ultimate aim of abolishing the police force altogether.

Another draws from the work of Olfmi Tw, a philosopher at Georgetown University. In his recent book "Reconsidering Reparations," Tw examines how anthropogenic climate change will disproportionately affect PoC and the global South. "Climate change," he writes, "threatens to turn existing forms of injustice into overdrive at every scale of human life," and hence "our response to [the] climate crisis will deeply determine the possibilities for justice (and injustice) in what remains of this century and if we survive to the next." Tw continues:

It is not that every aspect of today's global racial empire is rooted in the impacts of climate change. But every aspect of tomorrow's global racial empire will be. Climate change is set not just to redistribute social advantages, but to do so in a way that compounds and locks in the distributional injustices we've inherited from history. If we don't intervene powerfully, it will reverse the gains toward justice that our ancestors fought so bitterly for, ushering in an era of what the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights calls "climate apartheid."

Tw thus argues that we should address the impending climate catastrophe through a sort of "forward looking vision of reparations, concerned with what sort of world we can make together," quoting Bright. This approach "very much mirrors the concerns of the Non-Aligned person," as it focuses on changes to the fundamental, underlying conditions social, political and economic that may be required to achieve racial equality and justice in the future, in a world increasingly turned upside-down by massive flooding, mega-droughts, wildfires, sea-level rise, famines, biodiversity loss and other climate-related disasters.

I find this very compelling: There is, it seems, simply no way to resolve the mismatch between reality and ideal without addressing the fact that, as Tw notes, climate change will exacerbate and reinforce the underlying causes of present-day problems. But achieving this end will require radical shifts in the racial power dynamics that currently exist. It will require overturning what Charles Mills famously called "white supremacy," or "the unnamed political system that has made the modern world what it is today," which would mean white people giving up their accumulated wealth to achieve racial egalitarianism, not just within America but the world more generally.

Are Repenters and Repressers willing to do this? No, which is precisely why the Non-Aligned person does not engage in their bickering but, instead, uses what resources they have to investigate alternative solutions focused on reshaping global systems themselves, rather than on tweaking particular components of the system currently in place the very system responsible for the endless series of culture-war flashpoints that Repenters and Repressers, along with the PoC intelligentsia, are constantly fighting about.

If you're tired of the culture wars over race, the best way to end them may not be paradoxical as this may sound at first to try and "win" them. The take-home message of Bright's illuminating discussion is that we need to build a Non-Aligned movement. At the very least, he writes, "it is imperative that we cease investing our psychic energy in the white bourgeoisie's culture war. It will never get better, and only makes us worse."

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Noah Bookbinder is the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and a former federal corruption prosecutor.

Before, during, and after the January 6 attacks, Donald Trump turned to social media to energize supporters with the Big Lie that he had won the 2020 presidential election. Nearly two years later, Trump has a new platform to enact the same old playbook. With Truth Social emerging as a megaphone for misinformation and extremism, tech companies that are serious about upholding their publicly professed commitments to prevent the promotion of violent content must ban Truth Social from their online stores.

Back in April, and again in August of this year, my organization, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), called on major tech companies, like Apple and Google, to ban Truth Social from their online stores, pointing to its risk to democracy and insufficient content moderation policies. Its a step in the right direction that Google has not approved Truth Social for its online Google Play store, citing concerns over its insufficient content moderation policies. But the app still remains available for download on Apples App Store.Between February and August of this year, the app has been downloaded approximately 3 million times, with a major uptick in downloads following the FBI search of Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort.

Donald Trump launched Truth Social, a Trump Media & Technology Group product, earlier this year after he was permanently suspended from Twitter due to the risk of further incitement of violence after the January 6 insurrection. No longer able to reach his 88.7 million Twitter followers and spread election falsehoods, Trumps Truth Social platform is providing a new venue to spread misinformation-stoked militancy.

Since the federal government retrieved highly classified documents from Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago residence this past August, Trump has repeatedly vilified the government agencies involved and has deftly used Truth Social to ensure that his anti-democratic messages are disseminated widely. Since then, researchers have tracked an escalation of violent rhetoric from the far right, mirroring the increased chatter we saw on online forums just before the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Truth Social app has seen a spike in downloads, as Trumps supporters flocked to the platform. These individuals didnt join the platform in the aftermath of the Mar-a-Lago search simply to show solidarity. Instead, they came to Truth Social to intimidate and mobilize.

As part of that mobilization, Truth Social users publicly shared the contact information of those involved in the court-approved search, including that of FBI personnel, the magistrate who signed the court order in the Mar-a-Lago search, and their family members. Although personal information was later removed from the platform, the verbatim text had already spread across the platform, leaving private citizens vulnerable to those who might intend them harm.

We know all too well that violent threats can quickly escalate from rhetoric to reality. The individual who died attempting to breach the FBIs Cincinnati office just days after the Mar-a-Lago search is a case in point. He reportedly used his Truth Social account to issue violent threats calling for federal agents to be killed on sight and urging people to be ready for combat. He announced his deadly plans to attack the FBIs field office on Truth Social, underscoring the real threat behind such ominous posts.

Instead of de-escalating this volatile situation and condemning the attack on the FBI, Trump used Truth Social to undermine the credibility of federal law enforcement and promote the narrative that he, and by extension, his supporters, are under attack by many sinister and evil outside sources. To make matters worse, some of these posts promote QAnon and QAnon-adjacent content, tapping into conspiracy theories and misinformation. A recent post from Trumps account stating that it takes courage and guts to fight a totally corrupt Department of Justice and the FBI illustrates that he is attempting to use his more than 4 million followers on Truth Social in the same way that he used Twitter in the lead up to the assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. As the attack on the Cincinnati FBI field office demonstrates, Trumps strategy of using social media to spread false narratives and fan the flames of violence is still working today to inspire political violence and civil unrest.

If Truth Socials threat to democracy werent enough, the app is also facing a host of financial woes that should give companies further pause. According to recent news coverage, a deal with a special purpose acquisition company that had been on track to merge with Truth Socials parent company stalled after failing to secure sufficient shareholder support. It seems as though potential financial backers dont view Truth Social as a sound or stable investment. They rightly recognize that the risksboth financial and reputationalare simply too high.

The longer Truth Social remains available for download, the longer it serves as a threat to our democracy and a megaphone for Donald Trump to continue his attempts to destabilize our country and spread misinformation. Its time for tech companies to make the decision that is best both for their bottom line and for the democracy in which they operate by deplatforming Truth Social.

Noah Bookbinder is the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and a former federal corruption prosecutor. He previously served as chief counsel for criminal justice for the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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