Veto Corleone

So hellbent on retaliating against companies he dislikes is Donald Trump, he threatened to veto the entire $930 billion-plus defense appropriations bill unless it repealed Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That’s the provision shielding Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tik Tok and others from legal liability when someone posts something.

Nix that portion of the law, and we couldn’t have the internet as we know it, a place where just about any American can instantaneously share just about anything, consistent with the community guidelines voluntarily set and enforced by the platforms in question. Every post would have to be vetted and approved by higher-ups acting as traditional publishers.

Trump couldn’t care less. He’s on a crusade to destroy every force he thinks is allied against him, and that includes social media firms that think they have a responsibility to allow most speech while simultaneously trying to slow the unchecked spread of hate, not to mention outright lies about the election results.

The only thing more destructively revealing than Trump’s defense appropriations veto threat over Section 230 is his parallel threat to veto the bill should Congress boldly dare rename military bases christened in honor of Confederate traitors, a fix that actually belongs in the legislation.

Just in time comes a glimmer of courage among Republican lawmakers who for three-plus years have picked up the president’s carpet droppings, held their noses and called them rose petals. Section 230, said Senate Armed Services Chair Jim Inhofe, “has nothing to do with the military. You can’t do it in this bill.” Meantime, Mitch McConnell has refused to go to the mattresses over the president’s demand to strip out the base-renaming language.

It shouldn’t have taken Trump becoming a lame duck for the Senate to stand up to his idiocy, but we’ll take it.