Social media, and Twitter in particular, are President Trump’s version of “fireside chats” — a tool he uses to speak directly to Americans. President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously used fireside chats to lift the nation’s spirits during the Great Depression and World War II — but he also used weekly radio speeches to make his policy proposals, allowing him to bypass the polarized news media and distill the complexities of government into language all Americans could understand.
Just as FDR found a way to maximize the political utility of radio—then a relatively recent technology—through his fireside chats, President Trump is using social media to connect with Americans in recent and engaging ways. After FDR demonstrated the political value of radio, future presidents felt compelled to follow his example, turning the format into an entrenched tradition.
President Trump is exerting the exact same transformative influence using Twitter, but instead of trying to emulate his successful approach, as FDR’s critics did, some Democrats want social media companies to censor the President of the United States by shutting down his accounts. Senator Kamala Harris, a Democrat who desperately needs support for her faltering presidential bid, stated unequivocally during the last Democratic debate in Ohio that President Trump’s Twitter account “should be deleted.”
The Senator’s authoritarian position is a direct affront to our Constitution and the values upon which this country was founded. Our founders established freedom of speech and expression as the First Amendment to our Bill of Rights to emphasize that all of our other freedoms depend on the right to speak our minds. Unfortunately, Democrats seem to hate this Republican president more than they love this Republic.
It’s not just Trump supporters who should be worried. If Democrats think it’s acceptable to censor the social media accounts of the president of the United States, why would they have any reservations about censoring you, too?
In 2020, we will have to choose between a Democratic Party that is willing to sacrifice our constitutional freedoms for its own short-term political gain, and a Republican Party led by the most lucid and patriotic president in history. One need look no further than Trump’s rallies, regularly attended by thousands of supporters, to see how effectively this president engages with voters by speaking directly to them through social media. President Trump is pioneering a 21st-century version of FDR’s fireside chats, bringing politics to the people in a way that has never been done before. His opponents believe that Americans should not have the right to listen.
