Once, Democrats stood, proudly, in defense of the First Amendment. They preached tolerance for political speech of all kinds — even when it came to the neo-Nazis marching through a Jewish enclave of Skokie, Illinois, where many residents were Holocaust survivors. They understood how precious this right was to nation’s fabric.
“Freedom of speech is a universal right no matter how offensive the message or the speaker,” said ACLU’s legal director David Goldberger, who handled the case nearly 50 years ago. “The vitality of the First Amendment” depended on it. The organization even issued a pamphlet on the matter — called “Why the American Civil Liberties Union Defends Free Speech for Racists and Totalitarians.”
Now, they censor anyone whose opinion differs from their own. Led by President Biden, they spew venom against MAGA Republicans, frothing at the mouth — as if rooting to Make America Great Again were a sin. And they pretend that they are doing this in the name of a new civil right to transgender a whole generation.
I sometimes think wonder if they are nostalgic for a time when civil rights issues really were black and white — black people had suffered discrimination, and evil unjustices, and many of my generation — Democrats all — stood with them as allies as they fought for their rights, in marches and campaigns across the South.
But transgenderism — not the decision of individual adults to pursue a transition but the fashion trend of the moment to trans the children — has convinced one in four teenagers they are in the wrong body. This is not a civil right. This is mutilation, done by doctors who should have their medical licenses revoked, who ignore the fact that most teenagers are confused about life. Look at the smile on her face, the frown on his.
More than wanting to silence anyone who disagrees with them, these new Pretend Liberals promote the lie that conservative speech that incites violence — all while committing actual violence against Supreme Court justices whose opinions clash with theirs or burning down America’s cities because they don’t like the police. If you are pro-abortion, you can trash pregnancy centers with impunity. If you are pro-life, you will be arrested for praying in front of a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic.
Amid this two-tiered justice system — speech for me but not for thee, protests for me but not for thee — even some on the Left are pushing back.
Citing the media’s complicit role in government censorship, actor Tim Robbins singled out three Democrats — Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.) — for threatening journalist Matt Taibbi with imprisonment for refusing to name sources in his Twitter Files reporting.
Bill Maher regularly upbraids the Dems for their embrace of censorship. During the pandemic, the HBO Real Time host blasted Google, FB & the CDC for not allowing an open debate of COVID origins and Ivermectin effectiveness. “I find this outrageous,” he said. “Facebook banned any post for four months about COVID coming from a lab.”
Recently, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., running for the Democratic presidential nomination, complained, loudly and justifiably, when ABC spliced an interview he gave them to edit out comments he made about COVID vaccine injuries to children. As head of the Children’s Health Defense organization, he has been tracking injuries intently. His best-selling book, The Real Anthony Fauci, exposes the flaws in our pandemic response.
“Anthony Fauci seems to have not considered that his unprecedented quarantine of the healthy would kill far more people than COVID, obliterate the global economy, plunge millions into poverty and bankruptcy, and grievously wound constitutional democracy globally,” Kennedy wrote.
But ABC “News” decided not to air his comments, deeming them false and crashing them to the floor. As John Leake noted, “Anchor Linsey Davis assumed a role reminiscent of Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino during the trial of Galileo. Without citing any evidence,” she “vehemently asserted that RFK Jr. had committed heresy” by stating there is “a link between MMR vaccines and autism, and by questioning the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 gene transfer injections.”
If only Tucker Carlson were still on the air. He might say something like this.
Tucker Carlson, the only figure in broadcasting who always told the truth about everything — Jan 6, COVID, gender, Ukraine — was dumped by Fox News. With this single act, the Murdochs handed a mainstream media megaphone to Democrats. Fox News will now revert to George HW Bush’s “kinder, gentler” kind of Republicanism, and all channels will look more or less the same, conservative views not welcome on some stations and vilified on others. Call it a victory for Paul Ryan Establishment.
But the hopeful thing is that in the face of all this vilification, in the knowledge that Tucker Carlson was the only voice for conservatism left on television and that Donald Trump was defeated by in a corruptly-run election, conservative alternative media is thriving. I do not mean by this the Lincoln Project’s kind of conservative wannabes. I’m talking genuinely conservative websites, podcasts, radio shows, authors and even influencers whose alerts I welcome into my Internet space every day.
A literal thank God for Elon Musk, who has revived Twitter into safe space for all views. Like many, I believe he and Tucker Carlson may expand Twitter’s reach to accommodate broadcast as well as print. But no matter where he lands, Tucker will be voice for those who abhor censorship as the Democrats once did.
Censorship is not the only issue Democrats have abandoned in their efforts to turn America into a land of Marxist ideology, where pronouns are more important than principles and American exceptionalism is derided as the vestige of white supremacy.
Once Dems targeted corruption, passing all kinds of good-government reforms in the 1970s to combat its evils. Now, the leaders of the Democratic Left — from Nancy Pelosi to AOC, from Joe Biden to Joe Manchin — are all fabulously rich. And none of them have ever worked for a wage, living instead off their “service” to us taxpayers.
Once Dems distrusted big corporations and big pharma. Now they are in bed with them, all in the cause of woke. I read recently that the FDA is working with Planned Parenthood to purchase the “fresh” kidneys of unborn children for transplants. So abortionists, like teachers unions and Disney, get a pass. These evil-doers are welcomed to continue indoctrinating, mutilating or intimidating, because they salute the Marxist playbook. Just like China and Nike, using slave labor for profit.
Once Dems distrusted the security state, the CIA, the FBI, intelligence agencies. When Secretary of State Colin Powell produced CIA photos alleging weapons in mass destruction in Iraq, they doubted the CIA’s veracity — and these anti-war voices were right. Now, Dems rely on these very arms of government to buttress their lies about Trump or terrorize parents for defending their children’s education.
The mainstream media’s role in this transition is impossible to overstate. As a journalist for 35 years, I know that in the old days there was at least an attempt to represent both sides, to appear fair. Now major media figures like NBC’s Lester Holt say “fairness is overrated” and disparage “the idea that we should always give two sides equal weight and merit.” The script is no longer news, it is Lefty spin, Newspeak.
As George Orwell said in his classic novel 1984, Newspeak is a weapon of the totalitarian superstate. And as Joseph Goebbels said before him — he was the Nazi minister of propaganda — if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth.
Anyone who does not share the Dems extreme views is derided as racist, transphobic, white supremacist or MAGA Republican. They call us names because they have no cogent arguments against our calls for school vouchers or women’s sports for women.
And so, ironically, 50 years after they defended the right of totalitarians to speak, it is the Left that has become the totalitarians — all in the name of power and money.
Thank you Johanna for speaking the truth!