Good morning,

I've been thinking a little about social media this week, having been on the end of a few angry mobs, and I have come to the conclusion, at long last, that it is completely and utterly unsalvageable. 

Back in the early days of the Internet — we got our first modem in 1994, for my parents' business — the general consensus was optimistic to the point of naivety. "Surf the information superhighway," the commercials would say. "Make friends. Learn from each other. Shrink the world!" For a little while, this worked. But then people worked out that, instead of learning from @SusanLovesCats42, one could find out what is wrong with @SusanLovesCats42, and convey it swiftly to @DavidHatesCats9, and his interest-group /CatsMustAllBeExterminated. Before long, this became the norm. During the 1990s, I was part of a Usenet group about rollercoasters. Between about 1994 and 1999, it was a Usenet group about rollercoasters. After that, it was a Usenet group in which lots of people wanted to talk about rollercoasters, but others spent their time saying, "Hello, fellow rollercoaster enthusiasts. I see you're talking about the new Medusa rollercoaster at Six Flags Great Adventure, which reminds me of my view of that pervert Bill Clinton . . ." And then, it was ruined.

Twitter is this, but on steroids. Like many other people, I would like to see Elon Musk buy Twitter and change its moderation rules. At the moment, Twitter's rules are vague enough to allow for any outcome that the service's moderators wish to achieve. The result, obviously, is that those moderators can achieve whatever they want. "Hate" is what they say it is. "Misinformation" is what they say it is. And, of course, what they say it is always goes in the same direction. Were an Elon Musk type to take over, he could clean this up by insisting upon a much clearer set of neutral principles, and then making the decisions that are based on them transparent. "Don't publish someone's address" is a comprehensible rule. "Don't threaten to kill someone" is a comprehensible rule. "You may not harass" is not — and nor, in our current political environment, are any rules based on "sex, gender, race" etc., because, under our present hierarchy of grievances, those categories are not neutrally applied. A combination of clarity and simplicity, with a little due process thrown in for good measure, would improve the service no end.

But it would not "fix" it, because the core problems with Twitter are hardwired into Twitter's nature, and, possibly, into the nature of the web itself. One of those problems is brevity, which annihilates nuance. Another is that, outside of a few instances, the users do not know each other, and therefore feel comfortable using each other as collateral damage in an ongoing brand-building exercise. In the real world, nobody would scour a drinks party to find someone who is ten percent less politically hardcore than they are, encourage them to say something with which they disagree, and then start shouting to everyone else about what a weakling or bigot they are. In the real world, nobody feels the need to perpetually up the ante until it becomes ludicrous — "I think we should fire the governor"; "well, I think we should boil him in oil'; "well I think we should—look, have you seen Clockwork Orange?" In the real world, nobody picks on one person in the room and starts corralling everyone else to dunk on him for having said something silly or imprecise or unpopular: "Hey, you see that guy over there? Yeah, the one with the glass of wine? He thinks the tax rate is too low. Let's get everyone together and MESS HIM UP. 'HEY STEVE, YOUR OPINION ON FISCALLY POLICY IS LITERALLY KILLING PEOPLE, YOU GARBAGE PERSON.'" Only on Twitter does this happen.

Which is to say that Elon Musk could buy Twitter and get his way on everything, and this would still happen. Indeed, in one sense, it would happen more, because there wouldn't be a set of biased gatekeepers sitting in the breach and making sure that it only happens persistently to the people whom they personally like. In essence, the best option before us is to reform the web to ensure the equal sharing of miseries.

And who said I couldn't be cheerful on the weekends!

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Charles

On Tuesday, I argued that President Biden had blown another layup. I am in two minds about the judicial ruling that ended the CDC's mask mandate on transportation, and yet, for the life of me, I cannot work out why Biden waited this long to declare victory. Indeed:

that President Biden decided to renew it not once, but twice, after it had clearly run its course, was a testament to his near total lack of political guile. Back in November, I asked, “If, tomorrow, you told a plane full of Americans that they no longer needed to wear their masks, how many do you think would still have them on by the time you’d hung the intercom back on its hook? Twenty? Ten? Three?” Last night, we got an answer to this question. So thrilled by the judge’s decision were America’s beleaguered airlines that most of them chose to broadcast the news mid-flight, where it was met by a supermajority of passengers with the sort of glee that has usually been reserved for the end of a war. Had he been smart, Joe Biden could have owned that glee. Instead, it came in spite of him, courtesy of a Republican-appointed judge, from — of all places — Florida.

Why?

What did Biden get for his recalcitrance? An extra two or three weeks of a policy that everyone has known for a while was absurd? For months, it has been obvious that there is a big gap between what people are willing to tell pollsters about their attitude toward Covid and what people will actually do when given a free choice. Normal people have been able to sense this. Joe Biden has not — even as his approval ratings have dropped inexorably into the mire. He didn’t notice it when the Senate voted 57 to 40 to end the transit mandate. He didn’t notice it when vulnerable Democrats in the House began to tell journalists that they were in favor of “whatever gets rid of mask mandates as quickly as possible.” He didn’t notice it when SNL — yes, even SNL — started making fun of progressive hysteria over masks. Now, it is too late.

On Wednesday, I  made myself enormously popular within the conservative movement by opposing the Florida Republican party's decision to punish the Walt Disney Corporation by taking away its independent special district:

Those who have defended the move argue that sticking it to Disney in this matter demonstrates that the Republican Party is willing to “fight” and will thus represent a victory for conservatism. But this is silly. Admirably, Governor DeSantis has already fought Disney, and he has already won. The policy about which Disney chose stupidly to complain is now Florida law. It passed both houses of the state legislature; it was signed by DeSantis, who had been correctly defiant in the face of Disney’s gripes; and it enjoys the support of broad majorities of Floridians. There is no need for the Republican Party of Florida to salt the earth here; it has prevailed in every particular.

Presented with this objection, advocates of further retribution tend to switch gears and contend that Walt Disney World is not “entitled” to the setup it enjoys in Florida, that no law is guaranteed to “last forever,” and that Disney’s special status, granted before 1968, was probably due for “reconsideration” anyway. In a vacuum, these arguments are all defensible, but in context, they represent an extreme form of gaslighting. Until about a month ago, Walt Disney World’s legal status was not even a blip on the GOP’s radar. No Republicans were calling for it to be revisited, nor did they have any reason to. Yes, Disney isn’t “entitled” to its arrangement. But Disney wasn’t “entitled” to it in 2012, 2002, 1992, 1982, or 1972, either, and yet, amazingly enough, the legislature showed zero interest in rescinding it when given the opportunity on those occasions. That it’s doing so now is ugly. That it’s pretending that it’s doing so out of a concern for “good government” is grotesque.

The demagoguery on this issue is off the charts. DeSantis and co. describe Disney's status as a "special break" or a "carve-out." But it's not really. 

Properly understood, a “carve-out” is a rule that is applied differently to entities of a similar or identical nature: The Walt Disney Company, for example, enjoys a brazen carve-out in Florida’s tech-regulation bill: an exemption for Disney+ that was not granted to Netflix, Hulu, or HBO Max. By contrast, the rules that apply to Walt Disney World could be better described as “tailored,” for, despite the insinuations of many Florida Republicans, Walt Disney World’s accommodation is unique not in its type but only in its particulars. As it happens, Florida has 1,844 special districts, of which 1,288 are, like Walt Disney World, “independent.” The Villages — where Governor DeSantis made his announcement about the review of Walt Disney World’s status — is “independent,” as are Orlando International Airport and the Daytona International Speedway. Clearly, Walt Disney World is a weird place: It is the size of San Francisco, it straddles two counties (Orange and Osceola), and, by necessity, it relies on an infrastructure cache that has been custom-built to its peculiar needs. To claim that the laws that enable this oddity to work represent a “special break” is akin to claiming that the laws that facilitate special installations such as Cape Canaveral or the World Trade Center are “special breaks”: true, in the narrowest sense, but false when examined more closely.

How many of those 1,288 is Florida rescinding? Just six. And why those six? Because as I noted later in the week, the legislature wanted to pretend that it wasn't singling out Disney:

By including special districts that were established “prior to the date of ratification of the Florida Constitution on November 5, 1968, and which was not reestablished, re-ratified, or otherwise reconstituted by a special act or general law after November 5, 1968,” the legislature has made the provision look superficially neutral. It’s not neutral, of course — quite obviously, DeSantis and the legislature chose that date and those caveats because Disney’s special district was granted in 1967 — but to the uninitiated and the willful it looks as if it could be, and, in our contemporary politics, that’s all that really matters.

This was an uncharacteristically rash move from DeSantis, who is usually thoughtful, careful, and prone to due diligence. And what did he get for it, outside of a brief Twitter rush?

A good question to ask in politics is, “And then what?” And so it is here. I have no doubt that, if they really want to, Governor DeSantis and the Republican majorities in the state legislature can revoke Walt Disney World’s special status, and I have no doubt that, in the short term, they might profit politically from doing so. But then what? Does the curriculum bill become even more the law? Of course not. In all likelihood, all that happens is Florida’s zoning policy gets a little worse, the legislature elects to tie itself up for years in extremely complex and costly litigation meant to untangle the state from Disney, and other large businesses note for the record that Florida’s heretofore-admirable commitment to solving big and complicated problems should henceforth be regarded with an asterisk.

The whole incident was a shame, and one that will be coming to full fruition in July 2023, at about the point at which Ron DeSantis, in all likelihood, will be gearing up to run for president . . .

On Thursday, I took aim at Jen Psaki's suggestion that the Biden administration is contemplating unilaterally canceling all federally held student debt:

Were the White House to follow through with it, it would represent one of the greatest political mistakes in modern American history. It would enrage most of the country, further damage our separation of powers, help to entrench our two-tier approach to education, create an extraordinary moral hazard, considerably increase the national debt, and exacerbate the inflationary pressures that are already destroying Joe Biden’s presidency. One could spend one’s lifetime mining for destructive policies and never come across a jewel such as this. There is no “decision” to make. The answer should be “no,” followed by a swift exorcism.

The idea is a disgrace:

Proponents talk of “canceling” student debt, as if the debt would magically vanish at the stroke of President Biden’s pen. But the debt cannot just vanish, because it has already been issued and it has already been spent. When advocates suggest that the debt should be “canceled,” what they mean is that responsibility for paying it should be transferred — at the point of a gun — from the people who borrowed and spent the money to people who did not. Those who owe federal student debt owe it because they chose first to borrow it, and then to spend it on a service that they duly received. Those who do not owe federal student debt do not owe it because they did not choose to borrow it, they did not spend it, and they received no services in exchange for it. To use the word “cancellation” in this context is no different from using the word “cancellation” in the context of my mortgage. A few years ago, I borrowed some money to buy a house, which I have since owned and lived in. That debt cannot disappear; it can only be pushed onto someone else — be that my mortgage company, other mortgage payers, or taxpayers in general. If that were to happen while I remained under my roof, it would be a scandal.

It would also be politically stupid:

At some level, those who are insisting that others must pay their debts are able to grasp that they are demanding an entirely unwarranted handout, and, as a result, they often feel the need to cloak their request in macroeconomics. “If I didn’t have to pay my loans, then I’d have more money to spend,” they say. “And if I had more money to spend, there’d be more demand, which is good for the economy.” Leaving aside for a moment that this proposition is true of literally any debt forgiveness — I would have more money if other people paid off my car, or my house, or my cell-phone bill — the idea that significantly increasing demand should be considered a net positive in this economy is beyond surreal. Inflation is currently pushing 10 percent. The last thing we need to do is hand out tens of thousands of dollars to the already well-off in order to stimulate demand. That President Biden is even considering doing so — hell, that he has even extended the Covid-related moratorium on loan payments for as long as he has — confirms that he still hasn’t grasped how bad things have become, nor how bad they could yet get.

For my full archive at National Review, you can click here.

I was on two episodes of The Editors this week. On the first, we talked about the blocking of the travel mask mandate, the Ohio Senate race, and Jen Psaki’s move to MSNBC. On the second, we discussed the Florida bill to rescind Disney’s special status. You can subscribe to The Editors on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and more, or listen online at National Review.

On this week's episode of Mad Dogs and Englishmen, Kevin and I talked about the upcoming French election and Governor DeSantis's ill-advised move against Disney. You can subscribe to Mad Dogs and Englishmen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and more, or listen online at National Review.

I also appeared on this week's Guy Benson Show to talk about the Florida legislature's continued fight with Disney.

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