Post-Trump America: Celebrity-Politician Twitter Feud & Biden’s Trump-Era Policy Reversals
Seth Rogen & Ted Cruz Twitter Feud Amidst Claims of Fascism
Seth Rogen, comedic actor best known for movies such as Pineapple Express and Superbad, has recently taken to Twitter to express his disdain for Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz. The Twitter feud was ignited by a Tweet from Sen. Ted Cruz where he criticized President Biden for rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement. The feud/exchange was set aflame when Seth Rogen replied with a hostile Tweet of his own calling the senator a fascist.
This resulted in multiple days of an ongoing back-and-forth between Rogen and Sen. Cruz. Even other celebrities and politicians like Chrissy Teigan and Beto O’Rourke piped in with their two cents.
In post-Trump America, especially after the events that took place at Capitol Hill on January 6, there is a wide gap between the left and the right that has grown bigger over the last four years. The word “fascism” is seen more and more on social media and it is usually directed at right-wing conservatives. Seth Rogen’s attacks on Sen. Ted Cruz is yet another petty online argument between two very different people with opposing ideological and political views — certainly one of many, but not the last.
The Google Trends graph below is a numerical representation of Google searches of the terms ‘Seth Rogen’, ‘Ted Cruz’ and ‘Fascism’ over the last 7 days. Although Sen. Cruz has a higher search rate than Rogen or the word ‘fascism’, there is a correlation seen between the dates when Tweets were posted on the web and when the search terms saw spikes.
President Biden Reverses Trump-Era Military Trans Ban
Newly inaugurated President Joe Biden has made his first week in the Oval office not one without work. In fact, he finalized 17 executive orders on his first day in office such as rejoining the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement. A very notable action taken by the President was reversing one of Trump’s most controversial policies — the ban on transgender people serving in the military.
After claiming in 2017 that there would be a ban on transgender personnel serving in the military, followed by a lawsuit that was taken to the Supreme Court, the trans ban went into effect under the Trump administration in 2019. However, during his first week as President of the United States of America, President Biden has reversed the controversial ban much to the gratitude of many Americans (and the displeasure of others).
The graph below depicts the search interest over the last day (January 25, 2021) of the search terms ‘Joe Biden’ and ‘Trans Ban’. Although the search interest is significantly higher for President Biden, there are a few spikes in the interest of the search term ‘Trans Ban’ since the news broke of the new executive order signed by the president.
