Blocked and Unblocked By Trump
I am one of many people who were blocked on Twitter by Donald J. tRump. It happened to me on August 30, 2017. Almost one year to that date, on August 28, 2018, I was unblocked by tRump thanks to the great legal work of The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. Here’s the story about how and why I was blocked by tRump.
I have been anti-tRump since he ran in the primary elections, and I have been a proud member of The Resistance movement since he was elected president. I frequently replied to tRump’s tweets with criticism through my verified Twitter account. It was a daily ritual for me for the past two years. So it was a surprise to me when I was blocked by tRump. I surmise it was one of two tweets I sent to tRump that precipitated his blocking me.
The first was in reply to tRump’s tweet which he posted the morning after his first visit to Texas. tRump’s tweet stated:
After witnessing first hand the horror & devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey, my heart goes out even more so to the great people of Texas!
My reply was as follows:
Good thing you didn’t meet with victims of #HurricaneHarvey, especially the women, They’ve been traumatized enough.
The second was in reply to tRump’s tweet posted only 15 minutes after the previous one:
After reading the false reporting and even ferocious anger in some dying magazines, it makes me wonder, WHY? All I want to do is #MAGA!
My reply was as follows:
All the media needs to do is tell the truth in order to inform the world of your real nature: evil.
Soon after I was blocked by tRump, I posted a tweet to announce it. I’ve received a lot of support — and congratulations — since being blocked by tRump. It concerns me that tRump blocks citizens for various reasons. An elected official blocking people on Twitter is not in keeping with the most important principle of the United States, namely, free speech. Doing so may be also a violation of the First Amendment. It also raises questions about tRump’s temperament to be president for if he cannot tolerate criticism on Twitter, then how is he fit to negotiate with other world leaders?
I didn’t lose any sleep over being blocked by tRump. Some of my followers on Twitter told me that they will miss my replies to tRump’s tweets. I told them that tRump can block on Twitter, but he cannot hide. Now that I am unblocked by tRump, it’s fun time again.
