MAGA's Orwellian notion of "free speech"
They only value it insofar as it advances authoritarianism.
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Since returning to office, Donald Trump has swiftly reoriented US foreign policy around Russia’s best interests.
Trump refuses to blame Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine, which is a bit like refusing to acknowledge that 2+2=4. Instead, Trump has faithfully parroted Russian propaganda, suggesting that Ukraine somehow “started” the war and smearing President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “dictator.” This week, the US joined Russia in voting against Ukraine’s UN resolution condemning Putin’s invasion. It’s become increasingly obvious through Trump’s words and actions that he sides with America’s adversaries more than our allies.
Trump’s twisted foreign policy was on display in remarks Vice President JD Vance made at the Munich Security Conference on February 14. Vance minimized Putin’s active threat while lashing out at European leaders, who he accused of falling short in promoting democracy and free speech.
"The threat I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor,” Vance said. “What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America … In Britain, and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.”
This is outright gaslighting. In reality, Trump and Vance are presiding over America’s active retreat from its “most fundamental values,” such as preserving and promoting basic democratic norms.
Vance’s Munich speech was rank hypocrisy, but it was also a declaration of sinister intentions. What MAGA celebrates as “free speech” is more often rightwing propaganda, a necessary tool in authoritarian regimes, or outright hate speech that marginalizes the oppressed and promotes violence against them. While this further alienates America from our allies, it perfectly aligns the administration with autocratic regimes in places like Russia, Hungary, and China.
Vance’s shameless gaslighting
The second Trump administration has openly waged an Orwellian campaign of censorship far worse than anything Vance could criticize about Europe.
For instance, Associated Press reporters were recently banned from press avails because the AP wouldn’t fall in line with Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as “the Gulf of America.”
US Attorney Ed Martin — functioning like Trump’s personal lawyer — chillingly announced on Monday that the Department of Justice “will be vigilant in standing against entities” like the AP that “refuse to put America first.”
Yet Vance told the Munich audience, “Under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree.” This is a laughable lie that insults the intelligence of anyone paying the slightest attention.
Far from defending free expression, Trump has vowed to send anyone who burns an American flag to jail for a year.
“Gotta do it,” he said at a campaign rally last year. “You gotta do it. They say, ‘Sir, that's unconstitutional.’ We’ll make it constitutional.”
Last month, Trump signed an executive order that seeks to deport international students who attended pro-Palestinian protests. His administration has shut down federal websites that contained information about transgender issues, and his State Department now actively misgenders trans people on their passports. Just as Joseph Goebbels’s Ministry of Propaganda attacked cultural trends they didn’t like, such as so-called “degenerate art,” Trump has seized control of the Kennedy Center and wants to book the J6 Prison Choir to perform there.
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Trump frequently sues news outlets for reporting he deems “defamatory.” In 2022, he sued CNN for $475 million because it used the term “Big Lie” in reference to his big lies about the 2020 presidential election. He sued ABC for $15 million because George Stephanopoulos, echoing a judge, stated that a jury found Trump “raped” E. Jean Carroll. (ABC unfortunately folded and settled the frivolous case.)
Trump also sued CBS for an absurd $20 billion in damages over the network’s 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, which he argues was selectively edited to favor her. Obviously, Trump won the election so there literally are no damages, and his entire campaign didn’t come close to costing $20 billion.
Trump even sued the Des Moines Register and pollster J. Ann Selzer for “brazen election interference” because Selzer’s final poll showed Harris leading him in Iowa by three points. (Trump would win by 13.) Yet Vance had the gall to mock European nations for their concerns about Russia’s actual interference in their elections.
As a public figure, Trump’s ego has a glass jaw. He’s threatened for years that he would “open up our libel law” to sue media companies without needing the higher standard of proof required in New York Times v. Sullivan. Trump would love to use even more nuisance suits as a cudgel to silence critical speech he doesn’t like.
Trump is also exerting legal pressure on anyone who speaks against him. During a recent CNN interview about Elon Musk, Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia said, “The American public wants us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight. This is an actual fight for democracy.” Martin promptly sent a foreboding letter to Garcia stating that this “sounds to some like a threat to Musk.”
The power of propaganda
There’s a dramatic difference between speech Trump’s regime elevates and speech it seeks to silence all together. Vance lectured our allies in Munich, “If American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.”
This on the surface seems like astounding false equivalence. Thunberg is an outspoken environmental activist, and Musk is the world’s richest man who controls a social media platform with at least 600 million active users. However, liberal activism — especially from those Vance would derisively term “childless cat ladies” — is a threat to MAGA power, while Musk’s X is a critical component in Trump’s ongoing propaganda efforts.
When Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, he claimed he’d restore “free speech” to the platform, but instead he reactivated the accounts of Nazis and other radical far-fight figures, including Trump, who’d violated the platform’s terms of service regarding hate speech and incitement of violence. Musk then simultaneously suppressed and outright banned left-leaning accounts (including the publisher of this newsletter) for blatantly ideological reasons.
Musk is more than just a billionaire with a powerful megaphone. He’s practically co-president, even attending cabinet meetings, and overseeing Trump’s illegal dismantling of the federal government. Yet, he’s still owner of X, which is hard to distinguish at this point from official state media.
For instance, right after Trump smeared President Zelenskyy as a “dictator,” Musk pushed the false narrative on X, which was dutifully picked up on Fox News when Laura Ingraham boasted about how Trump doesn’t “bow to dictators.” This is all legally protected free speech but it is clearly propaganda.
Trump’s escalating attacks against the free press, including replacing mainstream news outlets at the White House with MAGA hacks, are a sharp contrast from European allies that still value public service media. Meanwhile, Vance criticizes Germany and Belgium’s hate crime laws but minimizes the threat from China, where state control of the media is especially restrictive.
Vance is also noticeably silent about Hungary’s 2021 propaganda law, which restricts discussions and depictions of LGBTQ people in schools and media. Obviously, this law is very similar to MAGA’s own anti-LGBTQ policies, which Vance supports. Despite his “free speech” rhetoric, he is not content to simply disagree with what he calls “far-left gender ideology.” He wants it stamped out completely.
Most revealing, yet not surprising, is that Vance finds little to criticize about Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which, like Trump, he openly paints as less of a threat to the free world than a supposed “enemy within.” This is a shocking omission from a “free speech” advocate. At least 21 journalists have been violently killed under Putin’s rule.
Putin actively suppressed free speech during his illegal invasion of Ukraine. In 2022, he signed into law a bill that imposes prison sentences of up to 15 years for anyone who publishes "knowingly false information" about the Russian military and its operations. By December 2022, more than 4,000 people were prosecuted under these so-called "fake news" laws. As a result, Russian media outlets stopped reporting on Ukraine altogether or even shut down.
A normal administration might argue that it’s only right the US should hold its fellow democratic allies to a higher standard than Russia, but Trump has threatened to jail reporters who don’t give up the sources of leaks from his administration. He’s talked about stripping networks of their broadcast licenses if he doesn’t like their coverage of him. There’s no evidence that he sees Russia as a cautionary example for our allies. In fact, Trump’s White House is currently emulating how the Kremlin replaced its press pool with Putin-friendly “journalists.”
Trump is often accused of “working” for Putin, but an alternate theory is perhaps even more disturbing. Nations form alliances out of a sense of shared purpose and common goals. Whenever Trump talks about Putin or Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, he does so in much warmer terms than he does with respect to democratic leaders like France’s Emmanuel Macron or Canada’s Justin Trudeau. It’s not a performance. He feels a genuine rapport with autocrats, dictators, and outright thugs. There’s no such connection with our European allies, who he openly antagonizes.
Vance’s Munich speech reinforced the Trump administration’s true alliances — shrugging off Putin’s election interference and normalizing the rise of far-right nationalism in Germany. The message to our historical allies is shocking yet crystal clear: A US government led by Trump does not share the same democratic values as they do.
That’s it for today
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Thanks for reading.
There's lots of down right pompous posturing about 'free speech'. It means nothing unless you permit people to speak freely who you disagree with. That's a test that quite a few liberals fail. As far as I can see (from Australia) the vast majority of American conservatives fail it utterly.
Great summary of where we're at. The Trump/Musk/Fox echo chamber is particularly pernicious, vapidly stupid comment bootlicked into malice broadcast into propaganda, no wonder half the country has lost their mind. Vance is in a category unto himself, his sternly presented lecturing comes from a place of utter, soulless depravity, free speech for me but never for thee.