An Elephant on Our Chest
America’s descent into being a state without free expression was quick, and eventually will affect us all.
I usually hate writing article titles. I feel goofy when I write them, like I’m trying to think of something that will catch attention on a newspaper when in reality, it’s going to appear on a Facebook feed between an AI-generated ad and someone complaining on a group about a car wash. Not this time: I wrote this title before actually writing the article. I think this describes how a lot of people have felt for the last few days, as the remnants of America’s first amendment has unraveled in very public fashion.
Someone was shot and killed for their speech. That should not go forgotten, nor should it be excused for any reason. It’s not a new phenomenon in our violent country’s history, either. I am not going to go into much about the events of last week here, for reasons that are probably obvious and will be explained further down. But it would be wrong of me to talk about the power of state to restrict speech without making clear that violence and mobs can also restrict speech, and that the role of the state is to protect individual rights to free expression. I hope that Americans can see our legal system work and bring his shooter to justice.
The role of the state is not, however, to restrict speech itself. The country’s history has been littered with attempts at doing this, only for either the courts or public opinion to bend toward greater individual freedom. What we are seeing today is not a “threat” to free speech, like we might have said at times earlier in this administration. We are seeing a wholesale end to free public political expression. For much of the last week, Republican governors, state officials, congressional representatives, and the Trump administration has publicly and privately demanded the firing of people who were deemed to have been disrespectful about the terrible events of last week, and have been talking about plans to target liberal institutions and organizations.
In January, the day before the inauguration, I wrote about the threat to our civil liberties that would come not directly from state violence or incarceration (though Trump is certainly not ruling that out) but from private actors, companies, and universities complying with the Trump administration to reduce speech and activism that opposes his government. Unfortunately that is exactly what is happening today. To be clear: this is not individual companies or groups of people choosing, by themselves, who to associate with. ABC/Disney did not choose, through their own concern, to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air. Their affiliate groups were threatened by their regulator! It is the clearest example of the state restricting freedom of speech as we’ve seen in decades.
The chilling effect of this is serious. People with the “wrong” views, those that run counter to the state narrative, those who believe in crazy things like the Constitution, human liberty, equality under the law, are already being run out of mass media out of fear of angering the administration, and are beginning to face personal consequences for participating in public social media. I’ve been a (very minor) public figure when it comes to politics my entire adult life, and I have never felt actually concerned about writing or publishing something. But none of us know where or who will report someone for “thoughtcrime,” and that’s a huge weight on everyone’s chest - an elephant, if you will.