OPINION:
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For those concerned about the threat posed by China’s genocidal communist regime and what has been the tepid response of our government to date, last week brought good news.
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce voted 50-0 to require Beijing-based ByteDance — the corporate parent of TikTok, which is probably the most successful psychological warfare operation in history — to divest its ownership within 165 days.
The other bit of good news is that the masks are finally off on the Republican side of China’s infiltration of the United States.
It was reported that Kellyanne Conway, on behalf of the Club for Growth, has been wandering around Congress for some time trying to convince members of Congress that doing anything to address the danger posed by TikTok would be ill-advised. Given the unanimous vote in the Energy and Commerce Committee, Ms. Conway might want to rethink her lobbying career and stick to polling.
It is not just Ms. Conway. Apparently, David McIntosh, who runs the Club for Growth, sat in on some of the meetings as well. That seems like a lot of firepower to preserve one small part of the communist apparatus bent on eroding the United States from within.
Here’s the best part of the story: It turns out a billionaire named Jeff Yass gives the Club for Growth a bunch of cash. Mr. Yass gave bags of cash to Vivek Ramaswamy’s presidential effort, and it appears that he engineered the rapprochement between Club for Growth and former President Donald Trump.
It should surprise no one to learn that — in addition to owning wide swaths of the “conservative” movement in this country — Mr. Yass also owns 15% of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. To give some idea of how much money he is prepared to spend to corrupt the political right on this issue, his stake in TikTok appears to be worth at least $20 billion.
So, lots of Republicans have lots of financial reasons to look the other way when it comes to TikTok. It is probably coincidental that last Thursday on Truth Social and this past Monday on CNBC, Mr. Trump test-marketed the idea that banning TikTok — which the legislation does not do — is not a good thing. The former president seems to be trying to equate the danger posed by TikTok with the nuisance posed by Facebook.
That dog is not going to hunt. Everyone knows that TikTok’s overseers in China mean harm. Everyone understands that the application’s algorithms are designed to foster idiocy and worsen it among the American population. That’s why its advocates have to be paid; it is difficult, even for those in the permanent Washington power structure, to advocate something contrary to the interests of the United States.
Mike Beckerman — a former Republican staffer on the same House Energy and Commerce Committee that just voted to give TikTok new owners — runs the Washington office for TikTok. He tried to frame the vote as government overreach that would lead to the wholesale banning of applications.
That’s nonsense, and Mr. Beckerman knows it. TikTok is different in character, scope and, most importantly, intent from any other application out there.
The House has tentatively scheduled a vote on the legislation for Wednesday. While lawmakers are privately concerned that Mr. Trump may try to scuttle the legislation, they intend to proceed. In reflecting the bipartisan and uniform sentiments of the voting public on this issue, the legislation will — and should — receive more than 300 votes on the floor.
Let’s hope Mr. Trump — who has done so much to address the threat posed by the slaving, genocidal, communist regime in Beijing — ultimately comes down on the right side of this issue. It would be a shame if he followed the lead of others and let Mr. Yass make the decision for him.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times and a co-host of the podcast “The Unregulated.”
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