Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

I hope he goes through with it, then gets dragged for abuse of power. But that's not likely to happen; the president has too much power, and there are no checks and balances in place. He is only still in power because his party voted to keep him in a sham 'trial', and they only voted in favor because else their party would look divided.

It's remarkable that Trump has consistently been against free-speech but still has the support of a non-trivial number of self-described "libertarians" like Thiel. This is in the 1st amendment sense as saying he wants to open up libel laws in 2016 [0] to his comments on video games [1] and flag burning [2] to in the broader sense in his anger at the kneeling protesters [3].

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/26/do...

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/fact-check-tru...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/15/no-braine...

[3] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-nfl...

Or the guns rights activists barely flinching at "Take the guns first, go through due process second". Just trying to imagine their reaction if the previous officeholder had said that.

The anger at the kneeling protestors is especially revealing considering the debate centered around whether the private NFL could interfere with the expression of the players.