White House Social Media Summit Irks Liberal Critics

Liberal outlets, however, described it as something akin to a secret Klan meeting designed to overthrow Congress and the Supreme Court.

Raw Story, a far left web-based publication, depicted the attendees as “right-wing trolls and conspiracy theorists.” A CNN commentator called the gathering “alarming & dangerous,” while HuffPost described it as a “bigotry circus.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based far-left watchdog group, also took a swipe at the event.

“The Trump administration's social media summit is a gathering of groups and individuals who have no business at the White House," the SPLC said in a written statement.

Those people that “have no business in the White House” included Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Media Research Center founder and president Brent Bozell.

The groups included Turning Point USA’s Benny Johnson and Charlie Kirk, and representatives from the Heritage Foundation.

SPLC’s statement added that the president “continues to support and normalize hate speech, targeting immigrants, Muslims, Jews, the LGBTQ+ community, and others.”

To be clear, Trump has no problem with immigrants — so long as they enter and remain in the country legally. Nor is there an issue with Muslims — only radicalized Muslims.

Claiming that the president targets Jews and the gay community is ludicrous. His eldest daughter, son-in-law, and their children are Jewish, and he promotes a campaign to decriminalize homosexuality throughout the world.

The SPLC has a history of labeling any person or group that doesn’t kowtow to its own brand of far-left liberalism as a promoter of hate.

They include:

• Alliance Defending Freedom for its promotion of Christian values
• Center for Immigration Studies for promoting border security
• Family Research Council, for advocating traditional marriage
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali, for speaking out against radical Islam
• American College of Pediatricians, for its belief that gay people shouldn’t adopt children

The SPLC also lists or has listed Fox News hosts Jeanine Pirro and Laura Ingraham, as well as Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson, as extremists. It’s silent on Antifa.

Raw Story’s description of attendees as “conspiracy theorists” is odd given that the conservative figures weren’t the only ones in attendance — the White House press corps was also there, as confirmed by CNN’s Jim Acosta, who had a complaint of his own.

“The scene in the WH Rose Garden,” he tweeted along with a selfie. “All WH press in the back. Trump’s social media allies in the front rows.”

His statement prompted at least some sympathy from another journalist.

“You going to be OK big guy?” Breitbart reporter Chis Tomlinson asked. “You need a Kleenex?”

Although the event itself proceeded without incident, another journalist, White House reporter Brian Karem, proclaimed afterwards, “This is a group of people that are eager for demonic possession."

Former deputy presidential assistant Sebastian Gorka quickly put an end to it, however, according to Jim Hanson, security expert and frequent Fox News contributor who was also in attendance.

Karem also took a shot at conservative activist Joy Villa, who’s a No. 1 Billboard independent rock recording artist to boot.

When she told the press corps, “We respect you guys, but you gotta stop reporting fake news,” he repeated, "How many copy editors do you have? How many copy editors do you have?"

The summit’s stated purpose was to discuss big tech’s repeated attempts to suppress conservative thought — notably by Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Trump promised the attendees that "we’re not going to be silenced."

Google has been caught skewing its search engine to favor liberal outlets, and Facebook, Google, and YouTube have routinely banned conservatives from their platforms for at least a year.

To be fair, former President Barack Obama also courted social media figures, but it was a lot more weird. He chose to be interviewed by YouTube personalities, including GloZell Green, “who drinks cereal from her bath” while seated in the tub, according to ABC News’ “Nightline.”

To the relief of everyone, the January 2015 interview, during which she referred to Michelle Obama as the “first wife,” was conducted in the White House and not her bathroom, however.

Conspiracy wasn’t completely absent, however. Twitter was down during much of the meeting, which prevented attendees from live-tweeting the event. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced the reason for the outage.

“Testing something new,” he tweeted. “More control, and transparency, over conversations sparked from your tweets. There’s going to be a lot for us to learn from here.”

Strange. Most people would say transparency precludes control, but whatever.

As for myself, I’m still trying to figure out why I’ve been temporarily banned from Facebook. Seriously.

Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to BizPac Review and Liberty Unyielding. He’s also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter, who can often be found honing his skills at the range. To read more of his reports - Click Here.