How Trump and the GOP are bowing to big money
Raw StoryDonald Trump’s flip-flop yesterday on TikTok shows how corrupt and sold out he and the rest of the GOP have become. Last week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted unanimously — 50 to 0 — to require TikTok’s Chinese government-affiliated owner, ByteDance, to sell the social media company to an entity not beholden to the Chinese Communist Party if they want to continue to have the app available in the US. This is about the threat because of the data that has been collected.” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise was blunt, according to yesterday’s New York Times: “We must ensure the Chinese government cannot weaponize TikTok against American users and our government through data collection and propaganda.” Even “Moscow Mike Johnson,” the Christian White Nationalist Speaker of the House who is actively holding up Ukraine aid to please Putin and Trump, was on board with the effort, saying it is: “n important bipartisan measure to take on China, our largest geopolitical foe, which is actively undermining our economy and security.” TikTok, for their part, has gone on the offensive, pushing a message to all 170 million US users over 18 to tell Congress to stop the “TikTok ban.” What’s proposed, of course, is not a ban at all; it’s simply a demand that a company not affilliated with the Chinese government take over ownership of TikTok. For his part, Trump has been pushing something very much like Congress’s proposed forced separation of TikTok from the Chinese Communist Party ever since he became president in 2017. Yesterday’s New York Times, in an article titled “Trump Gives Rambling Answer on Why He Backtracked on a TikTok Ban,” reveals how after that meeting Trump changed his mind.