Cooper: Blackburn saga tip of iceberg

The censoring of a portion of a campaign video promoting U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., is likely just the first shot across the bow of the negativity that will be thrown the way of Republicans in the 2018 election.
The censoring of a portion of a campaign video promoting U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., is likely just the first shot across the bow of the negativity that will be thrown the way of Republicans in the 2018 election.

Our crystal ball doesn't allow us to see whether U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., will be the Republican nominee for the state's open Senate seat next year, but we believe an episode in her first week as a candidate is likely to have repercussions throughout the country over the next 13 months.

That episode was the censoring by Twitter of a portion of the candidate's campaign video because it mentioned that one of the alleged products of some abortions is marketed "baby body parts."

The social media site didn't disallow her entire video, just the offending words.

"The line in this video specific to 'stopped the sale of baby body parts' has been deemed an inflammatory statement that is likely to evoke a strong negative reaction," an email from Twitter to Blackburn's campaign stated. "If this is omitted from the video it will be permitted to serve."

Blackburn, in a move akin to President Trump's continuous hammering at professional football players kneeling during the national anthem, didn't back down.

"I'm being censored for telling the truth," she wrote in a fundraising email. "Twitter has shut down my announcement video advertising. Silicon Valley elites are trying to impose their values on us. When I talked about our legislative accomplishments to stop the sale of baby body parts, they responded by calling our ad 'inflammatory' and 'negative.'"

Last week, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, in a letter to team owners, suggested that players need to stand for the national anthem.

On the same day, coincidentally, Twitter reversed course and decided to allow Blackburn's entire campaign video.

Their ads, a Twitter spokesman said, "strive to balance protecting our users from potentially distressing content while allowing our advertisers to communicate their messages. Nowhere is this more difficult than in the realm of political advertising."

Well, if the company was honest, it would have said, in this case, "conservative political advertising."

After all, since creating a Twitter account in 2008, the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) has posted photos and tweets that those in the pro-life community would find negative, if not actually false, and certainly inflammatory. Of course, NARAL has never been asked to remove any of its content.

The social media company, in changing its mind, said it had made additional reviews of Blackburn's video after the candidate's complaints and would allow the "campaign ad to be promoted on our ads platform."

The point is, in the year-plus run-up to the first Trump presidency national election, all hands will be on deck to criticize anything the president does or promotes, and anyone in his Republican Party.

If you thought the national media was partisan in the 2016 election, look for that to be ramped up to the extreme in 2018. The president, remember, was portrayed as the most deplorable buffoon of a candidate ever, was not supposed to win and was expected to take down a house or two of Congress with him. His upset win left the national media with a whole carton of egg on its face.

And hell hath no fury like a national media scorned.

Trump won't be on the ballot next November, but, like former President Obama said about his own tenure during the 2016 campaign, his administration will be. Network television broadcasters, late-night talk show hosts, the Hollywood crowd, academia, plus social media sites and popular search engine companies, will be gunning for him.

Opposition stories will rise to the top of search engine searches, complaints will be made about inoffensive conservative posts, advertising for liberal candidates will proliferate.

Democrats, after all, must defend more seats than Republicans. And several are in states Trump won in 2016.

Plus, Blackburn already has thrown down the gauntlet that she plans to be different from retiring moderate conservative Bob Corker.

"I know the left calls me a wingnut or a knuckle-dragging conservative," she said on the campaign video. "And you know what? I say that's all right. Bring it on."

Blackburn can count on the fact the left will bring it on. How she reacts could make all the difference.

It has in the White House. With a nonconfrontational president, no pushback would have been forthcoming on the football kneeling issue. But Trump saw it as mainstream Americans saw it - as an affront to patriotism. He changed the narrative, one the NFL commissioner grasped as television audiences declined, poll numbers sank and tax stances were considered.

Twitter, considering Blackburn's videos, may have seen a similar storm in its rear-view mirror.

One episode won't stop the onslaught of negativity coming over the next 13 months, but it may give the perpetrators of partiality pause. Their battle has been joined.

Upcoming Events