We need to move beyond governing by Tweet.
It may be that the ability of the people of the US to evaluate public policy has been stunted by the lead-based paint of social media, but before we collapse into a full-blown idiocracy, we need to demand that elected leaders speak in complete sentences and paragraphs. “Going viral” is valuable if your primary goal is to garner attention by doing something moronic, but smart people need to remember that viruses are often dangerous and should take care before spreading them.
There is little question that the dumbest people imaginable have been empowered to run our country and sadly, they have social media accounts. Although he is an odd teaching resource, we should have become conditioned by years of experience with Donald Trump to remember that we should temper our angry reactions to the hare-brained, late-night post knowing that it will be walked back or ignored or simply prove to be empty bluster sometime later on.
Then, after careful consideration, we should only get the kind of mad that you get when your kids post something on their social media that makes you cringe. Unfortunately, when the cringey teenagers are members of Congress and the leader of the free world, it can be really hard to keep our anger in check.
To recap the ludicrousness, Colorado Rep. Jason Crow and five other Democratic members of the House and Senate posted a video on X imploring members of the armed forces not to obey illegal orders and in big letters pleading that they “Don’t give up the ship.”
The appropriate response to this should have been for the entire country to respond to this juvenile clip by grounding them and taking away their phones.
Instead, President Trump said “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” Their crime was so heinous in Trump’s estimation that they deserved not just “death,” but DEATH. If it’s in all CAPS, it just has to be, like, so bad, right?
Forrest Gump famously said, “stupid is as stupid does” and there’s a lot of stupid here, so let’s unpack it. To begin, we should ask the following question to the cast of the video, Rep. Jason Crow, Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Sen. Mark Kelly, Rep. Chris Deluzio, Rep. Maggie Goodlander, and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan: huh? What are you talking about?
These Senators and Representatives were insinuating that something illegal is going on, but obviously did not want to say what exactly that might be because there is no proof or ruling that any illegal orders have actually been given.
They do however want us to be very afraid that the military will be used against ordinary people while leaving imaginations to run wild with worry of lawless soldiers roaming our streets.
Pressed on this point on “60 Minutes,” Rep. Crow ultimately acknowledged that he was talking about the deployment of troops to US cities even though he also acknowledged that nothing illegal has actually occurred. He was only speaking theoretically.
So, if that was the point, why not say that instead of posting childish videos on X? He could have sagely reminded us that there is great danger when deploying troops to US cities for missions they are not trained to carry out and bloodshed can result. That is exactly what happened during the Long Hot Summer of 1967 when military and National Guard troops killed people in Detroit and Newark. It also happened in 1970 when National Guard troops were sent to Kent State University in Ohio. In neither case were illegal orders found to have been given to troops, but people died anyway.
He might also have chosen to remind us that even when the troops follow legal orders, it can put liberty at risk.
In 1957, Arkansas governor Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to prevent the integration of Central High School pursuant to the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. In that instance, troops prevented nine black students from integrating the school until President Eisenhower federalized them, resulting in the troops following a contradictory order to help integrate the school. No soldier was ever found to have followed an illegal order even though they initially did what the governor told them to do.
The facts of our history should be enough to give any reasonable person cause to be concerned about using the military when it is not needed. A 90-second video appealing to service members not to follow unspecified illegal orders and to not give up the ship, whatever that meant, in no way helps to make that intelligent point.
If the aim is to give a nation a moment to think critically about a president who is careless with military power, then by all means make an appeal to the public, but could you please do it in a way that does not make our national discourse even dumber?
Perhaps they sought to elicit the kind of unhinged response they got from Donald Trump, but what good does that accomplish? Anyone who is not yet aware that Donald Trump is an emotional child is not going to be swayed by grandstanding on social media. Instead, it only makes opposition to him look just as foolish when the country is starving for competence and wisdom in leadership.
Need I reiterate that “DEATH!” is not a proportional response here?
How about this instead:
“Rep. Jason Crow, you are grounded young man. You need to go to work, do your job, and no social media for two months.”
That is the extent of the tough love that is required in this situation.
The only further admonishment I will add is to say, “Moving forward Jason, do your job better than this. We need a thoughtful, intelligent, competent, wise leader, not a moron with a camera on his phone. We already have one of those in the White House.”