The Very Stable Genius's presumption of what his powers are keeps getting more scary

On the heels of the VSG's Twitter tear about Joe Scarborough came his tweet about layoffs at The Atlantic, composed in his signature look-what-a-loser-and-failure-this-person / organization-is style, a typically head-scratcher characterization ("boring but very nasty magazine"), and the cruelty he's increasingly displaying these days (taking glee in people getting laid off).

And now his preoccupation is social media, in particular, Twitter. (You know, the platform he uses to denounce it.):

Conversation

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that....

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

....happen again. Just like we can’t let large scale Mail-In Ballots take root in our Country. It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots. Whoever cheated the most would win. Likewise, Social Media. Clean up your act, NOW!!!!

The first thing to say about this is that it once again demonstrates that the VSG is no conservative. There's a very simple fact that's relevant here that any actual conservative would bake into his premise for remarking on this matter: Twitter is a privately owned corporation. It's no a public utility, like your city's water service. The old rule that if you don't like the way the organization does things, you don't have to engage its services is screamingly applicable here.

And by the way, buster, I don't much like your tone at all. "Clean up your act, NOW!!" Who the hell do you think you are, anyway? I'll bet the suits at Twitter feel the same way.

But even if there were some reason for government to be involved in Twitter's affairs, it would not be within his purview to take action. He may or may not know this; he's not particularly well-versed in how the powers of the federal government are Constitutionally assigned:

While Congress could pass legislation further regulating social media platforms, Trump “has no such authority,” said former federal judge Michael McConnell, who now directs Stanford Law School’s Constitutional Law Center. “He is just venting.”

“There is absolutely no First Amendment issue with Twitter adding a label to the president’s tweets,” added Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, who won the case that prevents Trump from banning his critics from his Twitter feed. “The only First Amendment issue here arises from the president’s threat to punish Twitter in some way for fact-checking his statements.”

But Jack Balkin, a Yale University law professor and First Amendment expert, said that’s not Trump’s point.

“This is an attempt by the president to, as we used to say in basketball, work the refs,” he said. “He’s threatening and cajoling with the idea that these folks in their corporate board rooms will think twice about what they’re doing, so they won’t touch him.”

For Rutgers University media professor John Pavlik, who studies online misinformation, Trump is simply trying to fire up his political base.

“For Trump,” he said, “this is about politics.”

And another thing: Is this an appropriate subject of preoccupation for the US president during a time of pandemic and economic struggle?