RUTHFULLY YOURS

Last night, Nikki Haley, showing the wit, tact, and self-control that will, I’m sure, characterize a potential Haley presidency, called Vivek Ramaswamy “scum” after he pointed out that, even as she had attacked him in September for setting up a TikTok campaign site, her daughter had a TikTok account. Her children, she said, are off limits. I’m siding with Ramaswamy on this one, though. TikTok targets America’s youth, so we conservatives should have a presence there. The reality is that TikTok is tik-toxic, especially because it’s corrupting American young people on everything from sexuality to Middle Eastern politics. Since it’s here, whether we like it or not, we ignore it at our peril.

As you may recall, way too late in his first term to make a difference, Donald Trump issued an executive order banning apps from ByteDance Ltd., the Chinese-controlled company that owns TikTok. He did so because he identified TikTok as a national security risk. Within months of gaining the White House, Joe Biden rescinded that executive order, inviting TikTok back into America…and the People’s Republic of China back into the minds of our children. China got what it paid for when Biden entered the Oval Office.

It’s long been known that, within China, TikTok ensures that people see videos about China’s might, patriotism, health and fitness, America’s perfidy, etc. It’s all pro-government stuff, whether social or political. However, in America, TikTok promotes videos about anorexia, steroids, self-harm, LGBTQ+ stuff, with a special focus on transgenderism, and anti-Americanism.

Image: X screen grab.

Most recently, the American TikTok algorithm has been promoting hardcore antisemitic and anti-Israel content. I happen to have had a front-row seat on that. My son called me yesterday to complain about friends of his who have suddenly gone from knowing nothing about the Middle East to assuring him that Israel is an apartheid nation and that Hamas, rather than being a genocidal organization that wants to clear Israel of all Jews, is a freedom fighting organization. (Or, as one mindlessly said, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”)

Having told me this, my son said all their information comes from TikTok. That app, he said, is the biggest sower of disinformation and confusion about events in the Middle East. This was a rather amazing admission coming from a young man who tends to be mostly apolitical, albeit with a leftist lean.

I was dismayed but not surprised. This is what happens when your geopolitical enemy controls the content most likely to be seen by your young people.

That’s why, in the battle between Haley and Ramaswamy last night, Haley was not only a vulgar harridan, but Ramaswamy was right.

The starting point for the battle was the September presidential debate, which took place shortly after it emerged that Ramaswamy had joined TikTok. His reason for doing so is that TikTok is where you’ll find young people. If conservatives don’t go there, only leftists have a voice.

Haley used that news to take a jab at Ramaswamy:

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley lit into Vivek for using the app. “Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber. This is infuriating because TikTok is one of the most dangerous social media apps we could have,” she said.

What Haley ignored is that, as of that moment, her daughter was using TikTok (on a since-deleted account). More significantly, she ignored the point Ramaswamy made, which is that, as long as Biden has ensured Tiktok’s legality in America, conservatives are morons not to try to reach out to America’s youth via the app.

That leads us to the moment in last night’s debate when Ramaswamy was asked about simultaneously decrying TikTok and using it. Rather than answering the question immediately, Ramaswamy used the occasion to point out Haley’s hypocrisy. That’s when Haley pretended to go all “Mama Bear” to defend her daughter—her adult daughter. But of course, the point Ramaswamy made wasn’t about Haley’s daughter …it was about Haley’s hypocrisy and the fact that she’s completely wrong that conservatives must be too pure to touch TikTok:

Any president who values America should ban TikTok. If a Republican wins, I devoutly hope he does. But Ramaswamy is right that, toxic as TikTok is, there need to be conservative voices challenging China’s currently unhindered narrative.