Suppression Of Speech & The Hidden Truth Of Tyrants
There is no ‘kind’a sorta only if you do XYZ’ free speech. You either have it or you don’t and you either use it or lose it.
“Without open, free speech and debate with a free press, society has all the fresh air and light of a blocked and sealed window.”
Photo by Mark Taylor / DeMOCKracy.ink
“Don’t just blame Trump if you’re blaming presidents for the censorship that’s going on. Whether it’s journalists, whether it’s Colbert, whether it’s Kimmel also you have to blame President Bill Clinton — a Democrat — because of the role he played in pushing this corrupt legislation, and again, Democrats were getting big money from the media companies as well as Republicans.”
— Jeff Cohen, First Amendment advocate and author of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures In Corporate Media
By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (9/26/25)
Freedom of speech is simple: you either have it or you don’t.
There’s no ‘kind’a sorta only if you do XYZ’ free speech.
There’s a reason free speech is first in the Bill of Rights. It was understood that without the right to speak openly, question, argue, denounce and rally fellow citizens none of the other rights can be protected. Without open, free speech and debate with a free press, society has all the fresh air and light of a blocked and sealed window.
When it comes to free speech, you either have it or you don’t and you either use it or lose it.
Suppression of speech and a potty-trained media are hallmarks of totalitarian rule on both the right and left. An important trait to understand about suppression of speech is that it is not the act of a truly strong leader. While strutting, bellowing, menacing tyrants may project strength and God-given authority, in truth is they are mean little men. Uncertain and unaccepting of themselves and their place in the world; ever in search of affirmation.
Think for a moment, would a confident, self-accepting well-adjusted man turn to a tacky trio like this for daily advice and consultation?
Paradoxically, bullying projection of strength and authority is clumsy overcompensation for inner weakness, uncertainty and lack of self-worth. Think of it in your own life. Do the people you know who are comfortable in their own lives and souls have a need to manipulate, lie and demean or abuse those around them?
Of course not.
And are those in your life who are that way happy? Are they people you enjoy being around or would trust watching your kid for the afternoon? Enter into a business agreement with? Of course not. There is the tyrant. There is Donald Trumpstein; a pathetic pantomime of an adult.
Double down and ratchet up
As Trump’s poll numbers continue to crater he will not reevaluate his behavior or adjust whatever passes for “policy”. Instead, he will double down and ratchet up on all that is not working and instead beat down the marginalized and demonize anyone who has the slightest doubt or question of his delusion of towering Olympian greatness.
As a weak little man he can do nothing more because there is nothing inside.
The same can be said of the goons manning Trump’s ICE Gestapo. A news story of a recent ICE raid in Cato, New York included a report by a local human rights advocate:
“‘They were there to humiliate people and strip away their dignity,’ she said.
One worker who was deported later told Mendez that an agent wedged his knee on another worker’s neck. Mendez observed officers laughing during the raid.”
The abusive actions of weak little men kitted up like GI Joe. Handy dolls of tyranny, tough little guys tearing parents away from children.
There are parallels with the system of oligarchs profiting from the looting of the nation Trump’s little inner self permits. This week we are seeing it with the collapse of the mainstream entertainment and news industry into the greedy paws of Zionist Israel-loving billionaires. A system built on lies, deceit, fraud and a never-ending river of bullshit is terrified of free speech based upon true information and facts, so suppression and manipulation of what we are permitted to hear, learn and speak is absolute necessity.
The same describes the state of Israel, now seen for what it really is by the world.
The critical paradox
There is a critical paradox at work we all need to understand at this time. The more the powers crack down and work to smother free speech the greater is their desperation. The greater their proclamations and desperate condemnations the more they reveal of their inner weakness and fear of collapse.
I know the acceleration of this tawdry fascist state is overwhelming. Exhausting. But to know and understand its true inner character is to know our way to freedom. At every opportunity, in every way — large or small — resist. Gum up the works. Call out the truth of their inner weakness. Mockery is a powerful tool to expose the inner toddler of a Trumpstein. It’s why he was so frightened by even moderate comments by Jimmy Fallon.
Sign up for and share independent media and if you have the means to support it do so. This not a pitch for myself, I have not monetized my Substack and everything I do is free for you to use or pass along.
Join free speech groups like Fairness And Accuracy In Media and Foundation For Individual Rights & Expression (FIRE).
It’s not just that the emperor has no clothes, he has no sense of self. No inner being. He is a fragile husk.
And that is our strength.
Resist
Persist
Don’t be complicit!
The Sleeping Giant Is Awakening — After a week of authoritarian excess, the nation is turning on Trump: Friends, I can’t tell you exactly how I know, but after 60 years in and around politics I’ve developed a sixth sense, and my sixth sense tells me the tide is now turning on Trump. … Link to story
NOTE: Shortly after this post was published The Guardian published a good column on how Trump’s attacks on free speech are dividing elements of the right, Free Speech For Me, Not For Thee: How Trump’s Censorship Blitz Is Splitting The Right
“A government that can silence the speech you hate today can silence the speech you love tomorrow.”
— Judge Andrew Napolitano, Free Speech And Its Discontents
Betrayal of our free speech has been completely bipartisan
How Democrats Set The Stage For Trump’s Assault On Free Speech
Jimmy Kimmel’s show is back on the air… kind of. But the consolidation of corporate control over the media, mixed with a ravenously censorious Trump administration, leaves free speech in America hanging by a thread.
By Marc Steiner
Real News Network (9/25/25)
By pressuring broadcast giant ABC to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show—a decision that ABC reversed this week—the Trump administration has taken its assault on the First Amendment to new heights over the past week. Kimmel’s show is back on the air for now, but the whole debacle has revealed just how vulnerable free speech in America is to political and corporate authoritarianism.
This is a crisis, and both Democrats and Republicans have set the stage for it.
“As corporate media accelerate their censorship of comedians and journalists,” renowned media analyst Jeff Cohen writes, “we must realize that we got to this dire situation because of old-fashioned, bipartisan corruption in Washington, DC.”
In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Cohen about how the consolidation of corporate control over the media, mixed with a ravenously censorious Trump administration, has left free speech in America hanging by a thread.
33-minute video
Guest:
Jeff Cohen is a retired journalism professor at Ithaca College and the author of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media. In 1986, Cohen founded the media watch group FAIR; he is also the co-founder of RootsAction.org.
Additional resources:
Jeff Cohen, Salon, “Kimmel’s suspension shows media censorship is a structural problem”
Bobby Allyn, NPR, “Legal experts say pulling Jimmy Kimmel from air may amount to illegal ‘jawboning’”
Paul Starr, The American Prospect, “Capture the media, control the culture?”
Link to story and 35-minute video
Exhibit ‘A’
Stephen Miller Claims Simply Calling Trump Authoritarian ‘Incites Violence & Terrorism’
“Trying to criminalize the act of calling a government ‘authoritarian, is exactly what an authoritarian government would do.”
By Stephen Prager
Common Dreams (9/25/25)
Stephen Miller, the White House’s deputy chief of staff, signaled how far he is willing to go to criminalize dissent against President Donald Trump in a social media post on Wednesday in which he implied that merely describing the president’s actions as “authoritarian” is tantamount to a criminal offense.
Miller’s comments came in response to a clip of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who appeared Tuesday on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on CBS. In the clip, posted to X, the governor is shown describing Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) mass immigration roundups.
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No due process
“Masked men jumping out of unmarked cars, people disappearing, no due process, no oversight, zero accountability—that’s what’s happening in the United States today,” Newsom said. “People ask, ‘Is ‘authoritarianism’ being hyperbolic?’ Bullshit we’re being hyperbolic.”
Newsom noted that he had just signed the first bill in the nation forbidding ICE agents from wearing masks while carrying out arrests and requiring them to provide identification.
“I mean, if some guy jumped out of an unmarked car in a van and tried to grab me, by definition, you’re going to push back,” Newsom continued. “These are not just authoritarian tendencies; these are authoritarian actions by an authoritarian government.”
Newsom directly called out comments made by Miller, who recently said on Fox News that the Trump administration should use law enforcement to “dismantle” the left following the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
“This should put chills up spines, “Newsom said. “[Miller] called the Democratic Party an ‘extremist organization,’ basically a terrorist organization, saying he’s going after his enemies.”
Newsom also referred to a post made by Trump on Truth Social telling Attorney General Pam Bondi to target certain political enemies for prosecution.
Miller responded to the clip of Newsom, saying: “This language incites violence and terrorism.”
As many critics pointed out, none of Newsom’s statements in the clip promoted or encouraged violence. They were simply criticisms of the Trump administration’s actions, which have included rounding up immigrants without due process and singling out political opponents for persecution.
Violence against our freedom
US law has historically set an extraordinarily high bar for what speech constitutes “incitement” to violence.
As Lee Rowland of the New York Civil Liberties Union explained,
“The Supreme Court recognizes, rightfully, that political speech often involves really passionate, sometimes violent rhetoric. And unless and until it creates a specific and immediate roadmap to violence against others, it cannot be criminalized consistent with our First Amendment.”
But Miller’s comments indicate a concerted effort within the Trump administration to widen what protected political speech can be deemed violent.
On the day of Kirk’s assassination, Trump blamed “those on the radical left” for the murder, saying they “have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. He added that “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
Earlier this week, Trump signed an executive order designating “antifa,” short for antifascist, as a “domestic terrorist organization”—although it is not, in fact, an organization at all. Without a concrete group to target, critics have warned that the designation will instead be used to label those who describe Trump as “fascist” or “authoritarian” as threats in and of themselves.
Bondi suggested last week, in comments that were met with derision across the political spectrum, that the administration would use law enforcement to go after “hate speech,” which is generally protected by the First Amendment.
But the characterization of criticism being equal to violence only amplified following Wednesday’s shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas, which killed one detainee and critically injured two others. JD Vance made a similar suggestion that critical rhetoric toward ICE was to blame for the attack.
“When Democrats like Gavin Newsom ... say that these people [ICE] are part of an authoritarian government, when the left-wing media lies about what they’re doing, when they lie about who they’re arresting, when they lie about the actual job of law enforcement... What they’re doing is encouraging crazy people to go and commit violence,” said Vance.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), likewise, blamed the shooting on “every politician who is using rhetoric demonizing ICE and demonizing [Customs and Border Protection].”
Miller’s comments, which directly refer to criticism of the Trump administration as “inciting violence and terrorism,” may be the most direct indication yet of an intent to criminalize First Amendment-protected dissent.
Ironically, these threats have only made criticisms of Trump as an authoritarian grow louder.
“Trying to criminalize the act of calling a government ‘authoritarian,‘” said journalist James Surowiecki, “is exactly what an authoritarian government would do.”
Link to story and 5-minute audio
Trumpstein’s frantic art of repression
US Authorities Remove Trump-Epstein Statue From National Mall
By Eric Berger
The Guardian (9/25/25)
An impromptu statue of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein holding hands was unceremoniously removed from the National Mall in Washington just a day after a group of anonymous artists erected it there.
The piece showed the president and the late convicted sex offender, who were friends in the past, looking joyful together, with wide grins and feet kicked back.
A plaque stated that it was built in honor of friendship month. “We celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J Trump and his ‘closest friend’ Jeffrey Epstein,” the accompanying text stated.
The Secret Handshake, the group that created the art, had obtained a permit that allowed it to keep the statue displayed in the capital until 8pm on Sunday.
But the National Park Service, the federal agency that oversees the area, removed the statue because “it was not compliant with the permit issued”, Elizabeth Peace, a spokesperson for Department of the Interior, said to CNN.
Trump, who usually is adept at shaking free of any scandal, has not been able to temper the widespread curiosity and also anger from some on the right over the administration not disclosing the so-called Epstein files – all the material the authorities have on the business dealings, crimes and investigations into same regarding the New York financier, who killed himself in jail while awaiting federal trial in 2019 on sex-trafficking offenses. His accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, is serving a long prison sentence.
A Secret Handshake artist who identified himself as Patrick but would not provide his full name to the Guardian said in a telephone interview that the group built the Trump-Epstein statue to “honor the one and only true friend Donald Trump seems to have in his life”.
Best of buddies
In 2002, Trump told New York magazine that Epstein was a “terrific guy” and “a lot of fun to be with” but has repeatedly said in recent times that the two fell out long ago. The White House has called Epstein “a creep”.
Epstein had also told the journalist Michael Wolff that he was Trump’s “closest friend for 10 years”.
Trump recently said he was “not a fan” of Epstein and that he stopped talking to him because Epstein “stole people that worked for me”.
Patrick said he was confused by the authorities’ decision to remove the statue.
“The Trump administration has mostly been all about rebuilding statues that have already been torn down, of Confederate generals and other racist tropes and figures from the past” he said. “I would argue that Trump is a racist figure from the past, so why would you tear that down?”
In a statement to the New York Times, the White House said: “Democrats, the media and the organization that’s wasting their money on this statue knew about Epstein and his victims for years and did nothing to help them while President Trump was calling for transparency, and is now delivering on it with thousands of pages of documents.”
Give Thanks For Beauty Where You Find It, And Resist However You Can
As autumn settles across the American Upper Midwest the vegetable garden is filled with ripening tomatoes for a local food pantry. Midsummer I sprinkled flower seeds along the garden fence from an old packet I found in the greenhouse. Nothing came up and I figured the seeds were too old. Then early last week this beautiful bouquet popped up, bringing fresh life to the withering garden.
A reminder to never give up hope and never — ever — stop spreading seeds of dissent.
— Mark Taylor
I would argue that there is no left in the USA, or in most western countries. There's nothing left about the Democrats. They're just a slightly different flavour of right wing, maybe with rainbow crosswalks and that sort of thing. Both parties pander to the rich and ignore the rest of us.
Recall what Steve Bushemi/Nikita Kruschev said in 'The Death of Stalin' . Trump behaves as he does because he is a weak man.