Victor Davis Hanson: Dems using Facebook scandal to weaponize government against free speech

Author and historian Victor Davis Hanson accused Democrats Tuesday of attempting to capitalize on the ongoing Facebook scandal by weaponizing the federal government to police free speech. 

During an appearance on "The Ingraham Angle," Hanson argued that President Joe Biden's tanking approval rating, as well as the Democrats' agenda becoming more unpopular, would lead them to try and increase and weaponize the power of the federal government for their gain.

Facebook has become increasingly embroiled in scandal following an investigation by The Wall Street Journal that revealed the company was aware of several metrics, for which it took no action, showing use of its platforms were potentially harmful to the mental health of its users.

"As Joe Biden drops in popularity and as every one of the issues of their agenda become more unpopular, they’re going to try to increase and weaponize the federal government. And that’s just because they don’t have popular support. And we're already seeing it," Hanson said when host Laura Ingraham asked him why he thought Democrats were speaking out so staunchly against Facebook.

Hanson stated that no one on the left spoke out when riots, arson, looting and violations of quarantine were taking place in 2020 following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer, events that he pointed out were coordinated on social media. 

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"Not one person on the left said, ‘Wow, we’ve got to stop this,’" he said. "All of those things are coordinated on social media and nobody said a word." 

He added that no one on the left called out Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY., when he appeared to threaten conservative-leaning Supreme Court justices in early 2020, or when former Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., were harassed by activists in videos uploaded to social media. 

Hanson argued that Democrats don't win when "empowered middle-class citizens" are informed and are in control of their own administrative state. 

"They don’t trust those people because they have this top-down utopian agenda that they think they're some type of platonic guardians and they're going to tell us, the stupid people, you do this about quarantine, you do this about vaccinations," Hanson said. "They don’t want an empowered citizenry and they’ve done their best with demographic change and open borders or from trying to dismantle things like the filibuster, the Electoral College, or the nine-person Supreme Court."

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"The only thing that surprised me is how naive Mark Zuckerberg is," he added. "He does not understand the mind of the left. You are never going to satisfy them unless you give complete fealty … and he doesn’t understand that, and the more that he compromises with the left, the more that they want from him."