MONDAY, OCTOBER 21 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
BY SHERRILYN IFILLIn a speech Thursday at Georgetown
University, Facebook’s Mark Zucker-
berg invoked Frederick Douglass, Mar-
tin Luther King Jr., Black Lives Matter
and the struggles of the civil rights
movement to defend his company’s
policy exempting politicians from the
platform’s policies against false speech
and misinformation.
This is a profound misreading of the
civil rights movement in America. And a
dangerous misunderstanding of the po-
litical and digital landscape we now
inhabit.
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller
III’s indictment of Russian operatives
last year confirmed other official re-
ports that Facebook had been a particu-
larly useful tool in a misinformation
campaign that targeted African Ameri-
cans more than any other voters. In
recent months, civil rights groups such
as mine worked to convince Facebook
that the problem extended beyond for-
eign interference to the use of Facebook
by domestic political forces engaged in
their own dangerous campaigns of ra-
cial division and voter suppression. We
argued that Facebook failed to under-
stand how its platform has been manip-
ulated and weaponized in ways that
endanger racial and ethnic groups. We
also challenged — including in court —
practices by the tech giant that permit-
ted the explicit use of racism by ad
purchasers, and demanded that the
firm undertake a civil rights audit.
Although Facebook has undertaken
commendable measures to address the
ways that foreign and fake accounts
engage in election interference, the
company has refused to fully recognize
the threat of voter suppression and
intimidation here at home, especially
from users that the company refers to as
“authentic voices” — politicians and
candidates for public office.
Facebook insists it does not allow
voter suppression on its platform. But
that statement is more aspiration than
fact. After nearly two years of conversa-
tions between the company and our
groups, I am convinced that Facebook
simply is ill-equipped to define what
constitutes voter suppression — espe-
cially at the local level. To help Facebook
understand, we have provided the com-
pany with multiple examples of voter
suppression practices we have seen at
the local level that would survive their
policies.
Here’s an example. Imagine a candi-
date is running for sheriff in a border-
state county. On the Sunday night be-
fore Election Day, the candidate posts
the following on Facebook: “If you’re an
illegal, you will not vote in our election
Tuesday. Only citizens, legally regis-
tered to vote in our county are able to
vote. We’ll have an armed citizens patrol
watch on duty. Our citizens patrol will
be out in force outside the polls, exercis-
ing our Second Amendment rights and
protecting the integrity of our elections.
If you’re illegal, you and anyone who
tries to help you is going to jail.”
If this were a flier posted in a Latino
community, we would recognize it as an
attempt at voter suppression. But post-
ed on Facebook by a candidate, such a
post would be part of the “newsworthy”
content that Zuckerberg believes will
spark debate.
In his speech, Zuckerberg invoked
King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail”
as an example of the tension that comes
with free expression — a tension Zuck-
erberg encouraged us to embrace. What
Zuckerberg failed to note is that King
was the subject of violent assaults (and
finally assassination) that were the re-
sult of the same kind of hate-fueled
disinformation campaigns that infect
the Internet and are now aimed at a
different generation of civil rights lead-
ers. At the height of the Cold War,
segregationists and racists — often led
by politicians — falsely and repeatedly
claimed that King was a communist.
Many of those who harassed King and
civil rights protesters believed them-
selves to be patriots acting in defense of
America, precisely because of the con-
certed disinformation campaigns ad-
vanced by elected officials, FBI Director
J. Edgar Hoover and others. As a result,
a climate of violence and danger fol-
lowed civil rights activists and King
every day.
The civil rights movement was not
fought to vindicate free speech rights
under the First Amendment. It was a
fight to fulfill the promise of full citizen-
ship and human dignity guaranteed to
black people by the 14th Amendment.
To use the struggle of those extraordi-
nary heroes as a rationale for protecting
Facebook users who seek to incite the
same kind of division and violence
those heroes faced turns that history on
its head.
Facebook must do more than stand in
the reflected glory of those who sacri-
ficed much to create our modern de-
mocracy. It must stand in the harsh
light of truth and confront the enor-
mous responsibility of stewarding a
platform that influences hundreds of
millions of people and the potential
uses of that platform that threaten our
democracy.
The writer is the president and director-
counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Zuckerberg
doesn’t know
his civil rights
history
I
magine a transit system that kills
more than 260 people every year
in one metropolitan area, maims
and seriously injures another
2,600 or more, and forces those who
survive to waste more than two hours
every week in unscheduled delays.
We would demand an immediate
shutdown, of course, followed by a
radical change in culture and
oversight.
Except ... we have such a system,
and we demand no such thing. It’s the
system of roads and highways in and
around the nation’s capital. And it’s
not all that different from the system
of roads and highways in any other
metropolitan area.
Why are we so much more forgiv-
ing of their punishing costs than we
are of the transgressions of Metrorail
and other rapid transit systems?
I wonder this sometimes as I listen
to the rush-hour traffic reports on
WTOP. (Given that I am a Metro
commuter, why I listen to those re-
ports is another puzzler, but we’ll
leave that for another day.)
Every 10 minutes, it seems, a new
accident or broken-down vehicle is
causing a new snarl. And if it seems
that way, it’s because it is that way: In
one recent 12-month period on the
Capital Beltway alone, WTOP count-
ed “a total of 3,463 fender benders,
side-swipes and pile-ups.”
Not coincidentally, Washington
drivers spend an average of 102 hours
every year in traffic delays, according
to the most recent report from the
Texas A&M Transportation Institute.
Yet when we descend the Metrorail
escalator and find we have to wait
eight minutes for a train instead of
four, we are mightily annoyed. When
single-tracking causes a longer delay,
we’re furious. And when one person
dies in a Metrorail accident — which
last happened nearly five years ago —
it’s the subject of major investigations
and blanket news coverage (includ-
ing a number of editorials).
One explanation is that mass tran-
sit, like air travel, has the potential to
produce mass casualties, and so a
laser focus on safety and security is
essential. On highways there are
sometimes group tragedies involving
vans or buses or multiple pileups, but
most casualties occur one by one by
one.
Yet given the huge difference in
total casualties — more than
37,000 killed in road crashes across
the country each year, versus very,
very few in subway crashes — the
imbalance doesn’t seem entirely ra-
tional. Nor does the threat of mass
casualties explain why we seem more
willing to accept endless traffic jams
at New York and Florida avenues than
rail work on the Blue Line.
Part of the reason might be that we
feel more in control behind the wheel.
Of course everyone complains about
traffic. But even if the gain is illusory
when you switch lanes and pass two
cars on your right, you at least feel
you’ve taken your fate in your hands.
On a train, you are at someone else’s
mercy — and for some people, being
underground exacerbates the sense
of powerlessness.
Part of the reason might be that
Metrorail provides us with someone
easy to blame. The state transporta-
tion officials who can grill the Wash-
ington Metropolitan Area Transit Au-
thority general manager and CEO
Paul J. Wiedefeld every two weeks at
Metro board meetings rarely have to
answer questions themselves for con-
gestion or safety lapses on the roads.
And, besides, who exactly is to
blame for that congestion and those
safety lapses? Is it the state officials?
Congress, for failing to approve an
infrastructure bill? The driver whose
truck broke down in front you? The
truck’s owner, who failed to maintain
the vehicle?
The truth is we have come to accept
both traffic deaths and congestion as
part of the natural order of things.
That doesn’t make the United States
unique — more than 1 million people
die worldwide in road crashes every
year — but Americans are more than
twice as likely to die as people in other
wealthy countries.
We could do something about that
— get tougher on seat belt scofflaws,
install breathalyzers in every car to
prevent drunks from driving. But
many Americans see both of those as
an impingement on freedom.
We could do something else, too —
build more mass transit and maybe
appreciate it a little more. As it hap-
pens, since that last Metrorail death
in 2015, Washington’s system has
steadily improved both its safety
standards and its performance. More
and more routinely, when you de-
scend the escalator, the screen greets
you with that simple, blessed mes-
sage: “Metro is operating on or near
schedule.”
That won’t stop any of us from
complaining when there’s a delay. But
before we get too exercised, it might
help to tune in to the latest traffic
report.
[email protected]FRED HIATTThe transit
system
that fails
every day
N
o one has worked more aggres-
sively to trigger impeachment
than the president. You may
remember that, during the
campaign, then-candidate Donald
Trump suggested that, should he win,
he might become one of the most
“boring” presidents in history. There
was in this curious pledge — which, as
we now know, has been broken along
with many other campaign promises —
at least the slim possibility that Trump
would recognize the crucial difference
between running for office and running
the country.
Imagine, if you will, the consequenc-
es if Trump had embraced this pivotal
distinction. He need not have jetti-
soned many of his policy preferences.
He could have still favored lower taxes,
fewer regulations, tighter immigration
controls, tougher trade policies against
China and more pressure on our NATO
allies to raise military spending. He
might even have gently chided the
Federal Reserve to loosen credit. Agree
or disagree, these views are not wildly
outside the political mainstream.
What mattered was tone — the abili-
ty to debate issues without impugning
the character of his opponents. To be
sure, partisan debate is full of exaggera-
tions and simplicities. Still, it usually
respects some bounds of truth and
civility. Following this traditional path,
Trump might have boosted his popular-
ity, especially given the strong economy
inherited from President Barack
Obama. Even fierce critics might have
conceded that, in practice, the “boring”
Trump wasn’t so bad.
But that is not the path Trump chose.
In many ways, President Trump has
been more gratuitously offensive than
candidate Trump. He is a proven liar,
saying what he thinks his audiences
want to hear. Glenn Kessler andThe Post’s other Fact Checkers have
counted more than 13,000 lies and
deceptions.
Worse, Trump appeals to his sup-
porters’ basest human instincts. He
regularly uses immigration to stir racial
and ethnic tensions.
He insults almost anyone who criti-
cizes him. Trump fired Rex Tillerson,
his first secretary of state, and later
called him “dumb as a rock.” He has had
four national security advisers, because
he can’t hold advisers whom he ignores.
Most of his policies are collapsing.
He has made no progress in limiting
North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. His
withdrawal from the nuclear arms
agreement with Tehran seems to have
emboldened the Iranians to a more
violent role in the Middle East. Watch-
ing this, many Israelis wonder whether
the United States would come to their
aid if they were attacked by Iran or one
of its proxies, according to news re-
ports. His trade negotiations with Chi-
na have fallen short, despite high tariffs
imposed by both countries.
Now Trump has descended to new
levels of recklessness with his behavior
involving Ukraine and Syria. After con-
sistently denying election “collusion”
with Russia, Trump virtually begged
the president of Ukraine to collude by
investigating former vice president Joe
Biden, a potential 2020 opponent.
Trump’s abrupt withdrawal from Syria
has shocked even many Republicans,
who have deplored his decision as a
strategic blunder and a moral outrage.
We literally condemned to death many
Kurds who had fought with Americans
to defeat the Islamic State.
We face a terrible choice. Republi-
cans argue that the rush to impeach-
ment aims to overturn the 2016 elec-
tion. True. They say this is bad for U.S.
democracy. Also, true. One reason islegitimacy. What sustains successful
democracies is the belief by winners
and losers that they had a fair shot at
winning. Faith in the system is more
important than the result of one elec-
tion. But if you start fiddling with the
outcome — changing the result — you
destroy this belief and put democracy
at risk.
Because I respect this logic, I am an
uneasy advocate for impeachment. If
Americans don’t like their government,
they can elect a new one. This is how
mature and stable democracies are
supposed to work. But there is at least
one major exception: a situation in
which the president’s behavior itself is
so erratic and disconnected from un-
derlying realities that it poses an im-
mediate threat to the country. This is
mostly a matter of judgment, but I
conclude that Trump has landed us in
this unfortunate spot. What might he
do next?
The lesson of the Syrian debacle is
that Trump is increasingly impervious
to outside evidence and influence. No
one knows what he will do, except that,
reflecting his background as a reality-
TV star, he aims to dominate the daily
news cycle every day. This means he
constantly needs new and more incen-
diary material. He incites his “base,”
because he’s good at it and enjoys it.
Inevitably, this dragged him toward
impeachment.
According to the Constitution, the
House first votes on the charges, which
— if approved — would move to the
Senate for trial, where a two-thirds
majority would be required for convic-
tion. It is widely assumed that few
Republicans, if any, will support it, but
events are moving so fast that this
could change. I hope it does. Though
scary, impeachment and removal are
the lesser evils.ROBERT J. SAMUELSONImpeachment is the lesser evil
JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST
President Trump at the White House on Friday.T
he Fifth Avenue Murder Theory
now faces its toughest test.
This bold hypothesis was put
forward in 2016 by Professor Don-
ald Trump, who claimed that he could
“stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and
shoot somebody” and not “lose any voters.”
His proposition is by no means implausi-
ble. He won his electoral college majority
despite his louche and obscene admissions
to sexual assault in the “Access Hollywood”
recording. He has survived revelations of
hush-money payments to alleged par-
amours, and persuasive evidence that he
obstructed justice in special counsel Rob-
ert S. Mueller III’s Russia probe.
The vast majority of Republican politi-
cians have stuck with President Trump
through one abuse of power after another.
They included the shocking mistreatment
of migrant children, which the morally
attentive Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.)
— to his everlasting credit — continued
calling to public attention up to his death.
Trump, of course, was no mere academic
bystander as his theorem was put under
heavy stress. He rallied his loyalists in
primaries to purge Republicans who dared
speak against him. Most in the GOP don’t
want to suffer the fate of former South
Carolina representative Mark Sanford,
whose 2018 primary defeat was an object
lesson to other would-be dissenters. Trump
has always understood Voltaire’s sardonic
observation that it’s wise to mete out severe
punishment to those who fail you “to
encourage the others.”
But those others — meaning members of
the Republican Party, who will be the
arbiters of Trump’s fate in the coming
weeks — are not feeling quite as encour-
aged in their loyalty to the president as they
once were.
No, Trump has not murdered anyone on
Fifth Avenue yet. But many in his multiply-ing legion of critics believe the president
has blood on his hands because of his weak
and reckless response to Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The result was
Turkey’s assault on the United States’ Kurd-
ish allies in Syria. For once, the president
brought our deeply divided parties togeth-
er. In the House, 129 Republicans joined
every Democrat in condemning his feck-
lessness. Only 60 Republicans stuck with
him.
Then came the admission from Mick
Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of
staff, that the White House withheld nearly
$400 million in military aid from Ukraine
to further Trump’s political objectives. Mul-
vaney tried to unscramble the unsavory
omelet he had placed on Trump’s desk — as
The Post’s editorialists archly observed, it
seemed to dawn on Mulvaney that “confes-
sion might not be the most astute defense
strategy” — but his walk-back was entirely
unconvincing.
And Trump, the researcher, briefly tried
to make the test of his loyalists as difficult
as possible. As if his other breaches were
not enough, the White House announced
that the Group of Seven meeting of leading
powers would be held at the ailing Trump
National Doral resort near Miami. Realiz-
ing, for once, that he had gone too far, he
backed off on Saturday.
But Mulvaney continued to perfect the
art of the preemptive confession, a novel
approach to damage control. Long after
Trump claimed to have severed all opera-
tional ties to his enterprises, Mulvaney
insisted on “Fox News Sunday” that the
president “considers himself to be in the
hospitality business. ... He’s in the hotel
business.” Perhaps realizing what he had
just acknowledged, the acting chief of staff
quickly added: “At least he was.”
So how can the Fifth Avenue theory
survive? Trump has one reliable gambit,the stick-it-to-the-libs strategy. Everything
Trump does — his performative racism, his
attacks on “political correctness,” his
claims to be shielding conservative Chris-
tians from liberal persecution, his standing
up to the dark hordes at our borders — is
designed to turn all criticism of himself
into a socialist-liberal-radical conspiracy
against the good people who support him.
As long as Trump is at the helm, they have
nothing to fear.
It was convenient for Attorney General
and chief Trump propagandist William
P. Barr to issue a warning recently at the
University of Notre Dame against “militant
secularists” and “so-called progressives”
for plotting the “organized destruction” of
the role of religion in American public life.
“Secularists and their allies among the
progressives,” Barr thundered, “have mar-
shaled all the forces of mass communica-
tion, popular culture, the entertainment
industry and academia in an unremitting
assault on religion and traditional values.”
Standing with Trump means standing
against those (particularly in mass commu-
nication and academia) whose jobs happen
to entail presenting facts to counter the
fictions of the president and his guardians.
Oh, yes, and for more conventional con-
servatives, there are those wonderful judg-
es and Trump’s economic policies. Con-
servatives don’t want to give aid and com-
fort to the likes of Elizabeth Warren and
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, do they?
“My enemies are your enemies” is stan-
dard stuff among beleaguered politicians.
But it can be a dangerous doctrine for those
being asked to pledge loyalty. Trump is
telling conservatives to forget pretty much
everything they claim to stand for in the
interest of grinding their boots into liberal
faces. It’s a lot to ask. But, hey, it’s worked so
far.
Twitter: @EJDionneE.J. DIONNE JR.Stick-it-to-the-libs is all Trump has left