The ban had bipartisan support

yeah...that's the point I was making?

the initial attempt to ban TikTok happened in 2020, in Trump's first term. it was part of the general wave of anti-Chinese racism and xenophobia that the Republicans stoked up during the pandemic.

the "bipartisan support" for it is because a whole bunch of fucking Democrats hopped on board with it when they really should have known better.

and even if that all never happened, you’d still be in the same situation.

to be specific, when you refer to "that all" happening, you mean Biden signing the bill that banned TikTok in April 2024, I think?

Keep in mind that TikTok also put out messages during that period practically deep throating Trump and sent it out to all their users.

your timeline is jumping around a bit here, because now you're referring to "that period" and linking to a source from January 2025, the time of Trump's inauguration.

This was going to happen either way.

sigh. here's the actual roll call vote.

it had 197 Republican "yes" votes. which is not enough. it would have failed without Democratic support. and then Biden signed it into law.

so like I said, this ban only passed because Democrats were bamboozled into supporting a proposal that has its roots in Republican "omg China scary" bullshit. I don't know how to explain it any more clearly.

Friendly fire doesn’t do a whole lot of good, but does support Trump, which I’m assuming isn’t your goal here.

ahh yes, "criticizing Democrats is the same thing as supporting Republicans", the free square on the bingo board.

there's an analogy I saw recently that I really liked:

there's cockroaches in my house, so I call an exterminator.

the exterminator shows up, but he just hangs out with the cockroaches.

I get mad at the exterminator, and he says "don't be mad at me, be mad at the cockroaches".

but...I was already mad at the cockroaches. that's why I called the exterminator in the first place.

also, the cockroaches are cockroaches. me being mad at them is never going to change their behavior.

on the other hand, if I get mad at the exterminator...it does have a chance of changing his behavior.

if you want to view the world through an oversimplified lens that there's the red team and the blue team and you can never criticize the blue team because that's "friendly fire"...that is a choice that you can make. but don't act surprised if I don't subscribe to the same oversimplification that you cling to.

to be specific, when you refer to "that all" happening, you mean Biden signing the bill that banned TikTok in April 2024, I think?

Yes. Biden happened to be president, but any president would have signed that into law because of the support, and even if it hadn't become law, we'd still be in this position. Trump wants to control the media. He'll do it however he needs to.

your timeline is jumping around a bit here, because now you're referring to "that period" and linking to a source from January 2025, the time of Trump's inauguration.

The period in question went on for quite a while (a yearish if I remember correctly). Anyway, your comment doesn't actually say anything to contradict my point of ByteDance spreading their cheeks for Trump.

this ban only passed because Democrats were bamboozled into supporting a proposal that has its roots in Republican "omg China scary" bullshit. I don't know how to explain it any more clearly.

You don't need to. The ban is irrelevant. Without the ban, we'd be in the same place, with Trump attacking all forms of media to gain control.

ahh yes, "criticizing Democrats is the same thing as supporting Republicans", the free square on the bingo board.

You're not criticizing lawmakers here. You're criticizing the common person, the people actually affected by the purchase. What you're doing is essentially victim blaming.

Your entire analogy is irrelevant. The people you're criticizing are the people who reviewed the exterminator, not the exterminator.