There is a clear partisan divide in attitudes towards the First Amendment.
A Realclear Politics analysis gives specific details of the partisan divide in support for free speech. “Painting with a broad brush, Democrats grant significantly more deference to government than do Republicans when it comes to regulating free speech. This wasn’t the only fault line revealed by the RCP survey. Some of what is dividing these differences is generational, as Millennials and Gen-Z have come of age in a digital age environment in which reasonable expectations of privacy seem a relic of the past. “Those under 30 are most open to censorship by the government,” Kimball noted, adding that 42% of this cohort deem it “more important” to them that the government protect national security than guard the right to free expression. Among those over 65 years old, the corresponding percentage was 26%… Republicans are not the authoritarian party. That distinction belongs to the Democrats… Nearly one-third of Democratic voters (34%) say Americans have “too much freedom.” This compared to 14.6% of Republicans. Republicans were most likely to say Americans have too little freedom (46%), while only 22% of Democrats feel that way. Independents were in the middle in both categories.”
Targets of the anti-First Amendment crowd range from parents to billionaires.
The New York Post recently reported that US Education Secretary Miguel Cardona criticized parents who had the temerity of criticizing schools for their bizarre woke policies that have resulted in crises such as girls being rapid in restrooms by males who enter those places under the excuse that they “felt like a female” on a give day. Cardona chided moms and dads “misbehaving in public” and “acting like they know what’s right for kids.”
Those parents are in good company. After the 2020 election, when Democrat-leaning federal agencies moved to censor media outlets that would have printed or posted accurate information that would be embarrassing to Joe Biden, Elon Musk purchased Twitter, promising that he wouldn’t be intimidated in a similar manner. The White House made a predictable move. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Administration has responded by using a variety of excuses to harass Musk through various investigations.
Jason Boyd wrote in The Federalist that “Democrats are at war with free speech, and they are using every tool in their political box to silence their political opponents…Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren even went so far as to claim Musk owning Twitter is ‘dangerous for our democracy.’ The Washington Post also admitted that ’Democrats, Biden have limited power as Elon Musk buys Twitter…Throwing a fit about the ability to censor and suppress speech is a growing trend in Democrat politics. Leftist politicians past and present have been heavily involved in efforts to smear their political enemies as “threats to democracy” and label anything counter to their narrative as disinformation.”
David Keene, in a Washington Times article states that “Transparency is fast emerging as the major obstacle in the way of the woke left’s campaign to banish those who question its narrative from the public square. Today’s elites reject the classical liberal view that free speech is essential to the functioning of a free society as it allows thinking people to decide for themselves which opinions they might choose to support…When Elon Musk released evidence that Twitter not only engaged in a conscious campaign to shut down speech with which its owners took issue but also coordinated its censorship campaign with the government and with politicians its leadership wanted to promote, the elite media dismissed the whole thing as a lot about very little, but the American public wasn’t so sure.”
The censorship moves extended beyond electoral politics. WSJ found that “Newly released documents show that the White House has played a major role in censoring Americans on social media. Email exchanges between Rob Flaherty, the White House’s director of digital media, and social-media executives prove the companies put Covid censorship policies in place in response to relentless, coercive pressure from the White House—not voluntarily.” The emails emerged Jan. 6 in the discovery phase of Missouri v. Biden, a free-speech case brought by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana and four private plaintiffs represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance.”
American society, once open, has reacted. A CATO analysis found that “nearly three‐fourths (71%) of Americans believe that political correctness has done more to silence important discussions our society needs to have. A little more than a quarter (28%) instead believe that political correctness has done more to help people avoid offending others.
Frank Vernuccio serves as editor-in-chief of the New York Analysis of Policy and Government
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