Even 2 in 5 Republicans understand Trump is impeding free speech
It’s not often the case that you will be working on a quick article about something only to have the president of the United States directly validate your thesis. But it happens occasionally, particularly since Jan. 20. And it happened today.
At a White House event this afternoon, President Trump declared that his administration had “[taken] freedom of speech away” — the sort of thing that past presidents didn’t say, in part because they had far less reason to do so.
The event was focused on the purported threat posed by antifa, a loose-knit, microscopic collective of left-wing agitators that the administration has framed as an existential threat to the nation. During the discussion, the attorney general and the head of the Department of Homeland Security both presented antifa as a robust, insidious organization that demanded federal intervention, which is true only in that there is more grassroots interest in battling fascism than there was nine months ago.
Then Trump declared that one of his tools in combatting The Antifa Menace™ was instituting criminal punishments on people who burned American flags, something that he’s threatened on social media in the past but which continues to run afoul of First Amendment protections on speech. (See Texas v. Johnson.) Trump didn’t and can’t “take it away.”
As I said, I was already writing on the subject because of remarkable new data published by Pew Research Center this afternoon. Pew’s researchers asked Americans whether they viewed Trump’s use of presidential power positively or negatively, finding that most Americans considered his actions improper — and most disagreed that the changes he’s instituted have been positive.
The issue on which Americans were most critical? That Trump has improperly used his office to punish those who say things he doesn’t like. Which isn’t Congress making a law abridging speech (as the First Amendment prohibits) but is a reflection of Trump’s efforts to stamp out criticism and wrongthink.
So two-thirds of Americans think Trump is improperly using his power to punish those who make statements he opposes. Even more remarkably, that figure includes more than 40 percent of Republicans and independents who usually vote Republican. So even within his own party, a party that’s been fervently supportive of Trump, about 2 in 5 think that the president has improperly constrained speech.
I was originally going to end this post by noting that there was good reason for them to feel this way, articulating examples of Trump and his administration imposing costs on the free exercise of speech. But then the president just up and said it: we took the freedom of speech away.
Quod erat demonstrandum, I guess.
Photo: Trump in the Gold Office. (White House/Flickr)