Ellison: Trump Trying to Circumvent ‘the Whole System’ – ‘We Fought a War of Independence’ Against King George for That

On Thursday’s broadcast of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” DNC Deputy Chair Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) argued that President Trump uses Twitter in a manner that is comparable to the behavior of England’s King George III.

Ellison argued that Twitter should block Trump from Twitter and that he “can’t think of anyone who’s been more abusive than Donald Trump.” He added that there should at least be a discussion about the president’s Twitter use and that if Twitter evaluates Trump’s account and concludes that he hasn’t violated any of Twitter’s terms of use, “I’d be satisfied with that.”

Ellison later argued that he generally sees Twitter “as a good thing to foster communication from your government, but I think it can be used in a very bad way. Because, what he’s doing, through his Twitter account and in other ways, is circumventing the whole system to intimidate people, to pack courts, to intimidate the press, all so that he can just sort of run everything himself. And we fought a war of independence against somebody, King George, who was trying to do that. So, this is really why I’m actually kind of concerned about his use of social media, not the fact that he uses it. That’s actually a good thing. But the way that he uses it, I think is damaging to representative democracy.”

(h/t WFB)

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett