‘Republicans Ain’t Got No Swag’: Why Progressives Go Out Of Their Way To Oppose TikTok Ban

Every once in a while there’s a political no-brainer. Something along the lines of: The Chinese Communist Party is using an app to data mine and influence American kids — should we put a stop to it?

For any sane, fully grown adult the answer to this question is obviously: Yes. Yes we should stamp out this evil weed as soon as possible. And yet for progressive Democrats the answer is oddly, no.

Why?

Last week, when asked if his company is giving user data to the Chinese Communist Party, the Singaporean CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, hemmed, hawed, and stammered in his congressional testimony.

This is the same CCP that refuses to allow an investigation into the origins of COVID and recently flew a spy balloon on a cross country vacation courtesy of the Biden Administration.

But we are just supposed to accept that it’s fine and dandy if the Chinese government has access to every other ten minutes of our children’s lives.

With over one billion worldwide users, TikTok is now the social media opioid of today’s youth. 

The comical congressman from New York Jamaal Bowman gave us a pretty good idea why Democrats are kowtowing to the communist social media platform. He says “Republicans ain’t got no swag — that’s why they want a ban.”

It’s a very telling statement. It shows Democrats have honed in on the TikTok generation, young millennials and Gen Z as their ticket to future power, and it looks like a good bet.

After all, our elderly Democrat president loves having TikTok stars over to the White House to talk about climate change alarmism and men becoming women, and Vice President Harris is a regular feature on the communist platform. 

Then there’s Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who has mastered the art of the wine-infused political social media rant, the congresswoman doesn’t just represent Queens, she’s now a TikTok queen herself.

This week she made her debut on the Chinese juggernaut platform in gleeful support of the company, and why not? What better way to support socialism?

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) put it well saying, “It’s very concerning that the CEO of TikTok can’t be honest and admit what we already know to be true — China has access to TikTok user data.” Indeed. 

But this is bigger than TikTok. The Democrats have been channeling their inner Whitney Houston, insisting that the children are our present for years now, from Greta Thunberg to Kyle Kashuv.

And it seems to be working. Polling shows that unlike previous generations, Millennials are not becoming more conservative as they age, instead, for many of them, their progressive values are settling in like a pungent cheese. 

Compared to past generational cohorts, Americans under 40 are in a kind of ideological arrested development. The Financial Times put it bluntly in a recent headline, “Millennials are shattering the oldest rule in politics.”

Their study found that historically a 35-year-old should be about 5% less conservative than the average person, instead today that number is 15% less, and for younger Americans the numbers are even more stark.

What the Democrats are doing is stoking a kind of generational warfare, a narrative in which the Boomers destroyed America for their kids, or as a New York Times opinion piece recently put it, “Millennials Are Hitting Middle Age — And It Doesn’t Look Like What We Were Promised.”

You will have to pardon my Gen X incredulity when I say we were also promised all that stuff, that we can be whatever we want, that our dreams will all come true, we just weren’t naive enough to believe it.

The Democrats need TikTok because it is the place where young adults and children escape reality, where they really can be whatever they want to be, no avatar is out of reach, no pronoun too absurd. 

The Democrats have become a Mad Hatter political party in which science is public relations, policing is perverse, borders are irrelevant and we are 10 minutes away from climate devastation.

You know what platform is pitch perfect for proliferating these preposterous ideas? You guessed it, TikTok.

That two minute Karen who catches your eye confessing her privilege and professing her allyship, those sincere seconds with the very serious scientist urging you to get your 15th COVID booster shot, teachers unions doing horrible, horrible group dances. It’s all on TikTok.

Pandering to young voters is nothing new for Democrats, and frankly, it often doesn’t work. Shockingly, 22-year-olds are not the most reliable voters, but this is something deeper.

Put simply, by siding with TikTok progressive Democrats are undermining American interests and all but signaling that they want to partner with communist China for cultural control of our kids.

This is not a situation that the American people — especially American parents — will put up with. It’s a Trojan horse with a big sign around its neck that reads “I’m a Trojan horse.”  We all see it.

Pay close attention to the Democrats who support the Chi Com app, not to doubt their patriotism, but to doubt their good sense.

The threat that China poses to the United States and the West is very real, the neoliberal salad days awash in wishes of bringing the great dragon into the community of democratic free market nations are over.

Democrats who think TikTok is their friend should be careful what they wish for. Congressman Bowman may think that his TikTok swag is setting trends, but it’s just as likely that he is following trends approved by the CCP.

And therein lies the rub. Will Democrats protect Americans from malign foreign intelligence operations even if they accrue to their political benefit?

So far, the answer seems to be no.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP

David Marcus is a West Virginia based columnist and author of “Charade: The Covid Lies That Crushed A Nation.”

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases