To Kill a Mockingbird?

Trump was evicted nearly two years ago, but a return to more innocent, less toxic times seems farther and farther away. Elon Musk is part of the problem.

Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images.

On Saturday, I saw the theatrical version of Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, adapted by Aaron Sorkin. Set in Macon County, Alabama, in 1934, the story of a racist lie that a Black man had raped a white woman and the subsequent trial with an all-white jury touched me anew. Nearly 90 years after the time the story was set, it was both painful to hear the frequent use of the n-word and dispiriting to realize how timely this morality play remains. (It premiered on Broadway in 2018, mid-Trump.)

I came out of the theater with a lingering sadness and outrage about that history, and my mind turned to the danger Elon Musk is causing now. I was compelled to tweet this:

Steven Beschloss @StevenBeschloss

What kind of a man, said to be the world’s richest, spends $44 billion to give a platform for racists, antisemites, white nationalists & others to spread hate and abuse? What kind of man defends a man who abuses his power to incite violence & end the peaceful transfer of power?

I made the mistake of scouring the nearly 6,000 replies to this Sunday morning before breakfast. While I don’t have a precise calculation, it was exhausting to realize how many were determined to bombard me with their hostility. Many asked, what hate, what abuse? This reminded me of the frequent comments about Trump: What crimes? they ask. Name one.

Of course, there were many more abusive comments, which I won’t detail here, except to note that they frequently try to justify their jeers as “free speech” and that any criticism of them represents the liberal refusal to listen to “differing opinions.” (No, claiming I’m a pedophile or a “libtard” doesn’t represent “reasonable discourse.”) But this swarm of ugliness explains why many have chosen to exit the platform, including high-profile people like Elton John and Jim Carrey with millions of followers who have tired of what Twitter has become.

Remember what happened on Nov. 7, 2020, four nervous days after election night? That was the Saturday when the major TV networks announced that Joe Biden had won the 2020 presidential election, spurring a liberated celebration around the country—complete with dancing in the streets, honking horns, fireworks, banging on pots and pans on balconies, waving American flags, and a sense of joy and relief among the majority of Americans. Biden’s victory and the promise of Trump’s departure were unlike any in modern history.

How many millions savored that day with champagne, laughter and exhalations, then began counting—with bated breath—the number of days until Donald J. Trump would be evicted from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? I was among those who wondered and worried what new trouble he might cause before he was gone…or if he would really leave.

It didn’t take news coverage of that day to raise doubts. Assertions by Trump that the election was rigged started months before Tuesday, Nov. 3. Lies by Trump that he had won the election were televised well before the final returns were confirmed.

But to take one example, the closing paragraphs of a Reuters news story from that Saturday of celebration ended with ominous suggestions of what the future held. “Hundreds gathered on the steps of the state capitol building in Lansing, Michigan, waving Trump-Pence flags to shouts of ‘This is not over’ and ‘We will be here forever,’” the story noted, adding that Trump supporters near the Arizona state capitol, some brandishing guns, were chanting “Trump won.” The last line: “‘The media is part of the coup,’ one shouted.”

It’s been 765 days since that joy-filled Saturday, 705 days since the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, and 691 days since Donald and Melania Trump exited our White House and climbed into Marine One headed to Andrews Air Force Base and then to Palm Beach, Florida.

Not only has Trump not been indicted for his seditious role in inciting violence to hold onto power—or any other crimes related to election fraud—he remains at large even after the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago on August 8 to collect stolen government documents and his refusal for more than a year to return records that were not his, including classified material. Weary eyes are now fixed on special counsel Jack Smith, as we are left to wonder how much longer this criminal case will take.

But this dispatch is not about the question of Trump’s indictment and possible prosecution. Nor is it about the continuing effort of Trump to foster greater hostility toward democratic institutions such as the Justice Department and even the FBI or even his mad assertion last week demanding the “termination” of the Constitution.

Rather, it’s the continuing climate of toxicity, hate and abuse that was not quieted—and possibly exacerbated—by the failure of Republicans to take the Senate or achieve their much-promised Red Wave in the House. Yes, Trump’s dinner at his retirement home with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes has spurred more antisemitic hate both online and in the real world. But it may be the determination of Elon Musk to grab attention and turn Twitter into a playground for right-wing haters excited by his removal of content moderation and abusively glorying in his faux claims that this is all about free speech.

Over the last month, he has invited and begged Trump to get back on the platform, posted images of guns purported to be on his bedside table, shared a cartoon meme of Pepe the Frog which is a symbol used by white supremacists to spread their racist and pro-Nazi views, and just yesterday tweeted a not amusing jokey comment stating “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci.” This followed an announcement by Twitter several weeks ago that it was “no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy,” a policy that was intended to limit the spread of misinformation that helped cause the loss of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

As you might recall, in the days before the midterms, the world’s richest man who spent $44 billion to purchase the platform urged his 121 million followers to vote for Republicans—and since then he and various journalist types have been sharing behind-the-scenes “Twitter files” from the former content moderation team in a clumsy effort to claim election fraud and to insist this was a denial of free speech rather than a good-faith goal to limit the spread of misinformation and disinformation.

While all this “anti-woke,” “own-the-libs” cozying up to right-wing extremists is delivered in his amoral, amused tone and conveying the impression that it’s only about expanding the platform—”Twitter is now serving almost 90 billion tweet impressions per day!,” he tweeted 10 days ago—the reality and the effect is far more nefarious. As Robert Reich noted yesterday, “Elon Musk and his enablers have turned this website into a torrent of ad hominem attacks, lies floated as jokes, and blatant misinformation. This isn’t freedom of speech. It’s just dangerous.”

While Musk continues to claim a decline in hate on the platform, The New York Times reported on Dec. 2 that “slurs” against Black Americans have tripled since Musk took over, and slurs targeting gay men and antisemitic attacks have also been on the rise. “Elon Musk sent up the Bat Signal to every kind of racist, misogynist and homophobe that Twitter was open for business,” Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, told the Times. “They have reacted accordingly.”

Disingenuously, Musk recently tweeted, “You know Twitter is being fair when extremists on far right and far left are simultaneously upset! Twitter aims to serve center 80% of people, who wish to learn, laugh & engage in reasoned debate.”

If only he took that goal seriously. Instead, it looks like Musk wants to out-Trump Trump for his own narcissistic needs or worse, an effort to curry favor with Putin and Saudis who would be more than happy to see a further decline of democracy.

In the last few weeks, I’ve created social media accounts on Mastodon and Post, but I’m reluctant to leave Twitter—not only because of the people I’ve come to know, but because I can’t tolerate the idea of being driven out by the flood of haters. Let’s see what the future holds.

But this changing reality has led me to more deeply appreciate the growing community here. I’ve sought to focus on democracy and justice and the challenges facing America in my writing, and I’m grateful for the readership and the thoughtful and respectful replies that populate the comments section. I want to thank all of you for helping to build this publication as at least one oasis from the madness. Much work is still to be done to repair the metastasizing toxicity that was not stemmed by the eviction of Donald Trump.

I hope you will consider joining the expanding conversation by becoming a paid subscriber, if you’re not one already.