“Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet.”—Justice William O. Douglas, dissenting in Colten v. Kentucky (1972)
President Trump has no problem criticizing, condemning, insulting, demonizing and threatening those who refuse to fall in line.
He has branded political opponents “communists,” denounced critics as anti-American, lashed out at NATO allies, threatened to cut off trade with Spain, and referred to Iran’s leaders as “scum” amid the ongoing war.
In Trump’s America, the president is free to call other nations bad actors, label his opponents dangerous, and treat disagreement as betrayal.
But dare to criticize Trump, his administration, ICE, the police state, the war machine, the surveillance state, or the government’s steady assault on the Constitution, and you may find yourself treated as the threat.
This is the hypocrisy of the moment: those in power claim an unlimited right to criticize everyone else, while increasingly denying the people the right to criticize them.
Criticize the government, question the police state, object to ICE raids, oppose war, challenge corruption, reject propaganda, refuse to salute the party line, or insist that public officials obey the Constitution, and you may find yourself accused of being anti-American, extremist, subversive, ungrateful, communist, terrorist-adjacent or worse.
This is how free speech dies: not all at once, but by redefining dissent as disloyalty.
Yet the First Amendment was not written to mandate flattery and applause for those in power. It was written to safeguard the right of the people to criticize, condemn, expose, challenge and resist government abuses without fear of being investigated, surveilled, threatened, prosecuted or treated like enemies of the state.
The American Revolution itself began as an act of criticism.
The Declaration of Independence was a bill of complaints against a government that had abused its power, violated the rights of the people, used the military to intimidate civilians, obstructed justice, imposed unjust burdens, and treated resistance as rebellion.
By today’s standards, the Founders would likely be labeled extremists, agitators, radicals, anti-government dissidents and threats to national security.
What was once rebellion against tyranny is now being recast as a warning sign of extremism.
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