As someone who writes on behavioral economics and incentive design, I’ve explored how authoritarian systems often mask coercion as order, and how speech control is rarely about safety, but about power. This crackdown isn’t a deviation from the playbook. It’s the playbook itself.
What we’re seeing now is the domestic counterpart: a government that treats dissent as deviance and uses institutional muscle to punish emotional tone. The behavioral signal is clear—speak carefully, or be made an example.
This isn’t just about free speech. It’s about cognitive control. When jokes become threats and silence becomes survival, the system isn’t protecting the public. It’s conditioning it. Thanks again for naming what others are still trying to euphemize.
“That movement is now best understood as a single unified entity that encompasses political organizations, media outlets, informal influencer networks, and the federal and red state governments.” Add to this list: some members of the federal and state judiciary, as well as some members of the Supreme Court.
Thank you for this great piece.
As someone who writes on behavioral economics and incentive design, I’ve explored how authoritarian systems often mask coercion as order, and how speech control is rarely about safety, but about power. This crackdown isn’t a deviation from the playbook. It’s the playbook itself.
What we’re seeing now is the domestic counterpart: a government that treats dissent as deviance and uses institutional muscle to punish emotional tone. The behavioral signal is clear—speak carefully, or be made an example.
This isn’t just about free speech. It’s about cognitive control. When jokes become threats and silence becomes survival, the system isn’t protecting the public. It’s conditioning it. Thanks again for naming what others are still trying to euphemize.
MAGA prefers to be entertained at the Kit Kat Club.
“That movement is now best understood as a single unified entity that encompasses political organizations, media outlets, informal influencer networks, and the federal and red state governments.” Add to this list: some members of the federal and state judiciary, as well as some members of the Supreme Court.
Trump enjoys the machinations of his own personal Deep State.
Also add: the religious-industrial complex.
The backlash to this is a little heartening. It’s an easy story to tell.
".... and progressives’ congenital unwillingness to have people in authority tell them what to do.)"
- WTF is this fresh horseshit? JFC!
Fresh hell.
Pulled out of the author's biased ass ...
Principles? How positively 20th Century! There is only one principle for Baby Huey—ME!!
I’m not sure they are failing as much as this has been their plan for a long time, going back to at least the Alien Sedition Act of 1918.
Ya don't say?
Ya coulda knocked me over with a feather when I read that.
Oh, yah, you betcha!