Authoritarians Would Rather Be Ruled by a Tyrant Than Laws

Although, as I have said before, this is actually four propositions:

1. The law protects our in-group
2. The law does not bind our in-group
3. The law binds out-groups
4. The law does not protect out-groups

The first and third propositions are not controversial.  The fourth only comes up sporadically, although I expect to see a lot of it under a Trump administration.* But man, oh man, do you see a lot of the second proposition out there!

That is what is meant, after all, when right-wingers talk about "weaponization of government."  They are outraged at any attempt to bind them by law.

And maybe "law" should be broadened to "rules."  That is, to all appearances, the real issue on Twitter/X.  In pre-Musk times, Twitter had certain terms of service banning certain types of lies.  Terms of service do not carry the force of law,** but they are rules.  Right wingers lied, quite regularly.  Russian bots and troll farms also circulated lies, mostly calculated to advance right-wing causes.  Twitter made some attempts to enforce its rules against lies.

Naturally right wingers were outraged.  How dare social media enforce rules against them!  If right wing posts got taken down more often than left wing posts, it couldn't be because right wingers lied more often.  It could only be an active attempt to persecute conservatives.  And if Twitter went so far as to ban, say, Alex Jones, it couldn't possibly be because his lies were hurting people.  It could only be persecution of conservatives.

Conservatives demanded an end to all terms of service, and even to algorithms.  Social media should be required to post everything not expressly illegal, an probably do it in a first-come-first-serve basis.  If there was any blocking or favoring to be done, users could do it.  Then Elon Musk bought Twitter and right wingers said that he was a free speech absolutist and all was well.

Naturally, right wingers never questioned Musk's "free speech absolutism" when he used algorithms to manipulate results, banned speech he disliked, and let right wing lies manipulate his banning decisions.  At best, Musk supporters might justify their championship by saying if anyone felt unfairly treated, that was the other person's problem.  But often right wingers even wanted to require all social media to adopt Musk's content moderation policies.

And now that Musk is applying his rules to them, right wingers are once again outraged.  They are also learning the hard was just how arbitrary Musk's "rules" are, seeming to consist of one rule only -- never say anything that Elon Musk dislikes.  And, indeed, at least one commenter (no, not going to hunt the comment down and link) said that given the choice, he would prefer a tyrant enforcing arbitrary decisions to a team of bureaucrats because it was easier to evade notice by a single tyrant.  This does raise interesting questions about the role of bureaucracy in maintaining the rule of law, or at least the rule of rules.  But in any event, tyrants do not act alone.  They employ minions, and give their minions considerable leeway to be petty tyrants in their own domain.  Alternately, a tyrant like Musk who has fired most of the minions can rely on vigilantes.

Either way, I find it most revealing that these authoritarians, if they cannot obtain an exemption from following rules altogether, would rather be governed by an arbitrary tyrant than by the rule of law -- or rules.

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*Specifically, the idea that procedural safeguards to not protect outsiders.

**Except in the sense that all contractual terms carry the force of law.