One of the biggest talking points of the alt-right has been the so-called destruction of free speech, which they often blame on the rise of politically correct speech, or wokeness, as it’s referred to now. As such, many proponents of the new administration have taken President Donald Trump’s election to mean the end of wokeness in the United States, as proper red-blooded American virtues get injected back into the country once again and fake news is rooted out. Yet only a month and change after Trump’s inauguration, it’s clear that his new administration isn’t focused on freedom of speech, but rather on ensuring it controls political discourse and information conflicting with his agenda.
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the administration will personally select which news outlets are allowed to cover the President’s day-to-day actions. The administration has framed this choice as an effort to include “new media” outlets in the reporting process — taken to mean new websites, streaming services and podcasts — bypassing the White House Correspondents’ Association, an independent organization which has managed press access since 1914.
This is textbook authoritarian behavior — the leader insulates himself from the press and disrupts its ability to criticize him, all while creating a web of congratulatory, passive propagandizers to spew his preferred message, a group of bootlickers so happy to be close to the decision-making process that they’ll echo whatever swill they’re fed. Too scared to admit the selfishness of their own motives, they convince others that the good and moral thing is for everybody to prioritize themselves, becoming one-man propagators of the tragedy of the commons.
This is nothing new — Trump’s obsession with discrediting press coverage by labeling it as fake news has created a tectonic shift in modern politics, where facts are disputed and dismissed and a single accusation of partisanship is enough to undermine public confidence in even the most well-sourced information. Much has already been said about Fox News’ commitment to pushing an ideological message rather than reporting on the news, as well as the outsized level of control that Trump’s circle — Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, etc. — maintains over the flow of news. Such a high-profile dispute over commonly accepted intuitions, facts and reporting created public confidence in rebuking well-researched information. People no longer needed to listen to drawn-out and well-sourced arguments when they could just question the trustworthiness of the reporting involved. In one fell swoop, having the better argument didn’t matter anymore.
While this new cultural development of practiced ignorance did wonders for advancing Trump’s ideological positions, Musk’s purchase of X helped cement a stranglehold over public discourse. Run according to arbitrary and self-serving mandates by an unstable plutocrat with consistently embarrassing moments, X has become a self-proclaimed hub of free speech used almost exclusively to amplify viewpoints Musk agrees with. Whether it comes by way of banning journalists for their coverage of the site’s owner, supporting Germany’s controversial Alternative for Germany party and denouncing feelings of guilt towards Germany’s participation in the Holocaust, or using the platform to falsely promote the accomplishments of his new and dorkily-named DOGE organization, X has been a consistent tool in the promotion of alt-right speech.
In an autocracy, promoting speech you like is almost as important as censoring speech you don’t, something the broader MAGA movement has approached with gusto through intimidation and censorship. Books were one of the first targets of this movement, as conservative collectives, think tanks and advocacy groups sought to stamp out any intellectualism they couldn’t control or felt wasn’t in line with the most stringent of their values.
When censorship fails, MAGA turns to criminalization, discreditation and deportation. Used most recently against pro-Palestinian political activists, the alt-right has managed to deliberately simplify the politically complex Israel-Palestine debacle into two sides — pro-American supporters of Israel or terrorist-supporting antisemites. While the Democratic party has certainly helped push this narrative — in part because both groups represent the same influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — Republicans have taken this subjugation further by threatening deportation on top of the usual political suppression. Deliberately conflating protesters with violent militants across the world is a strategic move meant to make further vilify pro-Palestinian activists in the public’s eye.But make no mistake, the deportation of dissident political voices, censoring books featuring well-researched arguments that might make a conservative uncomfortable, and the strict ideology-based censorship of online discussion zones are nothing more noble than violations of free speech in an effort to consolidate political power.
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Contact Noah Zaldivar at [email protected].
