America, Trump and a tweet: well, that escalated quickly

Is United States. It’s still the year 2020. And because that’s the case, it’s no wonder that an accidentally sent tweet leads to accusations of offending millions. Also to accusations of slave labor and calls to boycott the world’s most valuable retail company. Yeah well that quickly escalated.

So the incident is also a little political image of morality, from which you can read something about the state of American democracy one day before the new year. Unfortunately.

So what happened

It all started with a message from Republican Senator Josh Hawley on the short message service Twitter. In it, the Lord of Missouri announces resistance to the formal reading of the results of the presidential elections in Congress on January 6. Democrat Joe Biden had won the vote against Trump.

Then the official Walmart Twitter account responds to Hawley’s message. A bit rude says: “Do it. Get your two-hour debate. Add “#SchlechtVerlierer” as a hashtag. This message will be removed shortly thereafter. And Walmart apologizes: “The tweet was posted by mistake by a member of our social media team who wanted to post this comment on his personal account.”

So it could have been good. But: USA, 2020. So it goes.

Senator Hawley is starting to foam up and attack Walmart. Also on Twitter.

The company had “insulted 75 million Americans.” It refers to all Trump voters, most of whom certainly hadn’t noticed the accidentally posted tweet. And, because America and 2020, that’s not enough for him: Hawley accuses the company of using slave labor. And besides, he would pay low wages. In fact, like other large US retailers, Walmart pays significantly more than the legal minimum wage. If that’s enough, it could be discussed differently.

But: USA, 2020. Therefore:

The incident is spreading rapidly on social media. Supporters of the US president in particular, who appear to believe his baseless allegations of voter fraud, are angry. Many users abuse Walmart and use the keyword “#boycottwalmart” to avoid doing business with the company. Good

Hawley’s action is also legally questionable

What’s left? Hope for 2021. Although it is feared that Trump will also refuse to admit defeat next year. He claims without proof that he was defrauded by massive fraud. So far, more than 50 lawsuits from the Trump camp have been dismissed from the courts, including the US Supreme Court.

However, Trump will not be able to prevent the results of the presidential elections of individual states from being counted and officially announced in the session of the United States Congress on January 6. Only then is it official who has won the elections. Namely, Joe Biden. With an advantage of several million votes.

Still, there have long been plans among Trump’s Republicans in the House of Representatives to appeal the reading. Under the law, to force both houses to deliberate on the outcome of the elections, there must be objections from at least one deputy and one senator. With the participation of Hawley, who is also harshly criticized by Republicans, this requirement would be met. The action, completely without evidence of electoral fraud and probably also constitutionally at least worthy of criticism, should only delay the reading of the electoral results. The accidentally sent tweet had apparently been linked to this. Sent the penultimate day of 2020. In the divided states of America.

Published: 12/31/2020, 8:40 pm