Valerie Plame, 54, the CIA operative famous for being publicly identified by the George W. Bush administration, wants people to help her stop Donald Trump from his endless tweeting. Plame has launched a crowd-funding campaign in an effort to raise $1 billion to buy a controlling stake in Twitter.
Outed CIA operative aiming to remove Trump from Twitter
Plame’s memoir “Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House” was made into the 2010 movie “Fair Game,” starring Naomi Watts. The film told the story of how the identity of the former CIA operative was outed by the Bush Administration.
These days Plame still has a grudge against the White House, but these days it’s President Trump who is in her sights. Whether she will be successful in her bid to raise $1 billion via her GoFundMe page or not is currently unknown. At the time of writing, the campaign, which has been running for seven days, has raised donations adding up to $34,949 towards the huge target. If successful in raising the required $1 billion, Plame intends using the money to buy a controlling stake in the micro-blogging platform, Twitter, thus giving her access to ban Trump.
If @Twitter executives won’t shut down Trump’s violence and hate, then it's up to us. #BuyTwitter #BanTrump https://t.co/HhbaHSluTx
— Valerie Plame Wilson (@ValeriePlame) August 18, 2017
Trump and the “horrible things” he does on Twitter
On the campaign page, Plame points out that Trump has done many “horrible things” on the 140-character platform, including the empowerment of white supremacists in promoting violence on journalists.
She added that his many tweets damage the U.S. and put many people in harm’s way. However, Plame goes on to point out that using Twitter to threaten nuclear war with North Korea has taken his tweeting to a whole new dangerous level.
Trump calls his tweeting habit “modern day presidential,” but several government officials claim his badly thought out and erratic tweets have the ability to increase tensions with both foes and allies of the U.S.
Twitter ignores pleas to shut down Trump
As noted by USA Today, the GoFundMe campaign’s statement adds that it is time to shut Trump down, adding that the social media platform had ignored many calls to enforce Twitter’s own community standards and delete the U.S. president’s account. In May this year, Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey said in a statement that it is important for the people to hear directly from their leadership.
However, Plame strongly disagrees and went on to state that with the help of the campaign, the people themselves can make the decision on Twitter’s behalf.
With Twitter currently valued at almost $12 billion, the goal of the crowdfunding campaign is to raise $1 billion, which would be sufficient to buy a controlling interest in the platform. However, Plame said that is a "small price to pay" to prevent Trump from starting a “horrific nuclear war.”
With only $34,949 raised so far by the campaign in seven days (with $508 raised at the time this article took to write), Trump probably isn’t too worried as yet. However according to the GoFundMe page, the campaign is currently trending, so who knows?