People Who Defend Trump's Assault On Free Speech Are Mindless Sheep
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
President Trump has taken to social media to boast about his administration’s arrest of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil for leading Columbia University campus demonstrations against Israel’s genocidal atrocities in Gaza, proclaiming that “This is the first arrest of many to come.”
“We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it,” Trump said.
And judging from what I’m seeing online, and the responses I’ve been getting to my criticisms of these abuses, most Trump supporters seem perfectly fine with these measures. Many are actively defending them.
Words can’t express how disgusted I am with Trump supporters who defend their president stomping out speech rights for Israel after spending years wailing about the loss of free speech in America. It’s beyond mere political differences. I don’t respect them as people.
Of all the pathetic, groveling, bootlicking positions anyone could possibly espouse, it’s hard to imagine one more egregious than twisting yourself into cognitive knots trying to find ways to excuse a president crushing free speech in your country to advance the interests of a foreign state after spending years yelling “America First” and whining about freedom of speech, just because that President happens to be a Republican.
If you are doing this, you’re just admitting that you don’t stand for anything, and you’re just drifting along with the herd and supporting whatever the man in charge tells you to support. You’re unthinking human livestock. A mindless, useless, pointless NPC. You have wasted all of your time on this planet, because you did not use that time to mature into a sovereign adult with basic intellectual agency and integrity.
Republicans have this adorable story about themselves where they believe they have changed since the George W Bush administration, but that’s not what I’m seeing on social media today. I’m seeing the same shitbrained, power-worshipping sheep who cheered on every authoritarian abuse rolled out by the Bush administration. That’s all this so-called “populist” movement calling itself “MAGA” turned out to be: all the same authoritarian bootlicking, but with more presents for Israel.
I saw a tweet from Michael Tracey the other day, “GOP free speech: You can say ‘retarded’ again, but you can’t protest Israel.”
That’s the long and short of it, right there. When Trump supporters spent all those years yelling about the First Amendment, it turns out they weren’t talking about the need to stop the powerful from silencing inconvenient political speech — they just wanted to be allowed to say “retard” and “tranny” on social media. As long as they get those completely irrelevant concessions from the powerful, they’ll happily let their government set all kinds of speech-suppressing legal precedents, because they don’t actually have any values or positions which pose any kind of challenge to the powerful. They’re George W Bush Republicans LARPing as populist revolutionaries.
Someone who actually supports free speech says “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Trump supporters say “I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death my government’s right to silence you as long as a Republican is in office.”
Worthless, spineless cucks. What an undignified way to live.
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IMO, the most important purpose of 'free speech' is to confront/challenge power, to confront authority, to keep a check on the power elite, to fight against unjust hierarchical systems, to hold the ruling elite responsible for their words and actions.
When POWER (as in the state) clamps down on the ability of citizens to keep the state accountable to the people, that is FREE SPEECH (and this is also how free speech rights are described in the US Constitution) being violated.
When an empire (or administration) is acutely aware of its downward trajectory and slow demise, it ratchets up its authoritarianism - and with it comes the loss of 'free speech' and many other rights. Unfortunately, this is just the beginning. I see the US Empire (which is currently a semi-fascist state) derailing and dissolving into a full-blown fascist and totalitarian state (UNLESS IT IS STOPPED).
I believe things are too far gone for "peaceful protests" to make the changes that need happening, too far gone for "voting" to get us out of this mess, too far gone for "congress and legislative processes" to stop the slide into authoritarian totalitarianism.
As many have mentioned in this substack before, we need to FOCUS on labor movements, working people, unions, strikes, stopping the "means of production" AS A UNITED CLASS. We need to put stuff like "culture wars", "left-right", etc. on the back burner for a while and ALL COME TOGETHER to STOP THE 1% before it is too late...
All this bullshit about anti-Semitism when it is islamphobia that is the problem. In the US, there has been one anti-Jewish terrorist attack, by a white supremacist but many attacks on Muslims, including Trump banning them and supporting genocide and ethnic expulsion against them.