The Sweep: The Politics of a TikTok Ban

Plus: What can we learn from a survey of GOP county chairs?

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(Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/Getty Images)

Appetizer

There’s all sorts of reasons the United States should ban TikTok. 

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  1. Kongming

    Who cares about the politics of it? Banning tuktuk is the best thing anyone could do for the social well-being and mental health of the nation (well banning all social media would be better but baby steps). Please, Biden, ban taktak!

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    MatthewRobin

    Sarah does not mention the biggest threat posed by tiktok. Its the CCP 's direct interface with the minds of our youth.

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  3. Vermin8

    Regarding the TikTok ban- is it just the app that will be banned or accessing the site at all?

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  4. Aaron H Frank

    Regarding TikTok, is a ban really possible? Banning it from government phones is difficult enough given the capabilities of mobile device managers (MDM) and the ingenuity of addicts. Mobile phones themselves are a huge risk and smart phones as a sub class an even bigger one. The amount of data the average Android phone gathers and send home is terrifying and this is independent of any apps. And it would be easy enough for a chip maker to embed some kind of spyware into one of their chips. But now I am just being paranoid.

    The CCP could bankrupt Social Security. China is our biggest creditor. At some point in the near future the feds may have to choose between servicing our debt and paying social security, medicare, etc. so the comparison is perhaps a little closer than Sarah thought.

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      TerrBear

      A little truth and perspective about China and our debt:

      Our national debt is shockingly and sadly $31T. China owns less than $1T of that at about $870B. Japan actually owns more, at over $1T. That ownership is also economically beneficial to them. It's not a one-sided they-have-us-by-the-short-hairs scenario.

      By far, most U.S. debt is owned by the U.S. government or U.S. citizens. We need to fix it and get serious about it. But that starts with placing blame and assigning solutions where they actually belong and always based on truth and proper perspective.

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      1. Aaron H Frank

        Thanks! After your reply I looked this up. There is some pretty cool stuff out there on who owns our debt. Or, to quote, Pogo, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

        Pew has some pretty nice infographics.

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          TerrBear

          Yes, my friend. The fact we're our own worst enemy on debt (and other things) does not make it any more comforting, does it? We need elected grown-ups to get serious about entitlements.

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    Earl King

    If Democrats were smarter along with their media acolytes they’d pump up the shortfall looming for both SS and Medicare. The reason? the GOP has NO PLAN to deal with the shortfall. It would expose their fiscal restraint issue...as a canard. No different than their ephemeral repeal and replace Obama Care.

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    1. Aaron H Frank

      We cannot really blame the Rs for being reticent to discuss modifying SS. The last time they did they were hammered in the next elections.

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        Earl King

        I agree totally with you. Throw Granny off the cliff. That said some Republicans are so irresponsible and saying such stupid things they have back themselves up on this cliff. I’m no genius but blame the Trustees, I would simply say that the Trustees have told us we have a looming shortfall. I would then suggest, (since we have no agreement) that we put together a bi-partisan select committee of responsible Democrats and Republicans to develop contingencies to present to the public. Hopefully doing two things. Sliding it off the front page so it can no longer be used as a bludgeon and hopefully they can look at the options and discuss amongst themselves what is politically viable.

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  6. Julianna Langston

    For blind users, I reproduced the charts in this article with interactive sonification:
    https://codepen.io/chart2music/full/eYLMqmB

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    Paul Britton

    Sarah, I just don’t recognize any of the faces in that graphic about experts. The point was lost on me.

    It’s possible I would recognize their names even though their faces are unfamiliar.

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      Stephanie

      Theranos, Sam Bankman-Fried, and the WeWork guy.

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        Paul Britton

        Right. I know who these people are -- have read a lot about them -- but I don't watch TV, probably haven't seen their faces in the media, and don't know what they look like.

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      JohnM.

      These 'whiz kids' (Elizabeth Holmes, Sam Bankman-Fried) have all fallen hard after these magazine covers were published.

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    Barry Alexander

    Is there any polling data about *how* Republicans think the election was rigged? I get your point, but I'd like to see some polling.

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    Normb1442

    Gee, I had no idea that the 2020 election was "stolen" not because of Dominion voting machines or piles of Trump ballots being tossed into Philadelphia sewers, but because Democratic officials cooked the books by putting in place rules so that more people could vote in safety during a pandemic. WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM STATE LEGISLATURES, no less. Joe Biden would never have won AZ and GA without those Democratic officials pimping for him, right? Right? I expect to read this defense of the deniers in a QANON screed, not to see it sort of defended here. The COVID-inspired voting rules weren't in effect in GA or AZ or PA or MI last year. How'd that work out for you sore losers?

    I suppose Sarah is doing nothing more here than explaining the feelings of people with whom she does not agree -- at least I hope so. Implying, however, that the 56% who say there is solid evidence of fraud have a legitimate case ignores the facts and arithmetic of the election. AZ and GA voted under GOP-ruled administrations -- so friendly to the Republicans that Trump had the temerity to ask them to lie about the outcome in GA. In both states, the votes have been pored over multiple times, without a change. You can make a case -- a weak one -- that WI and PA might have turned out differently but not MI, where Trump lost by almost three points, and with AZ, GA, and MI, Biden still wins. And to repeat it, AZ, GA, MI, and PA -- Trump-backed Senate candidates got skunked last year.

    How much losing do Republicans have to suffer before they realize that its the electorate in the purple states, not voting machines or mail-in voting or some other excuse, that's is turning out against their worship of the culture wars?

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    1. Vermin8

      "I suppose Sarah is doing nothing more here than explaining the feelings of people with whom she does not agree -- at least I hope so."

      That is my interpretation of her writing. She wasn't questioning the election itself - she was questioning the interpretation of the poll.

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      Mister D

      As a conservative who believes in process, I wasn't fond of the way many of those voting regulations were put in place. However, they weren't done in the dark of night at the last minute. Trump and friends knew what the rules were, railed against them, and did little to make use of the them. Ceding absentee voting and other reforms to the Democrats was an error that helped Biden win. That's on Trump. That said, the GOP seemed to overperform down ballot - Biden had no real coattails- so maybe, just maybe, it wasn't the reforms that were the problem.

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  10. Stormer93

    187 out of 3000 sounds like almost a junk statistic. I wouldn't take any conclusions from such a small sample, especially since the ones who didn't respond likely hold completely different views.

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      Azlefty

      187 responses from a pool of the 3033 counties is probably a reasonable sample size from which to make inferences. If there is some self-selection bias in the responses, that would be a reason not to trust the results. Apparently Masket found that the sample was representative, so I trust the results. Especially because they aren't very surprising. If they were surprising, I'd bother to read the article to look for sampling bias. The fact that Republicans like Ron DeSantis isn't exactly earth shattering news.

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    2. David R

      Consider that that's a much larger percentage than polls sample typically.

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About Sarah Isgur

A staff writer for The Dispatch. With experience on three presidential campaigns and all three branches, she knows how decisions in Washington get made.
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