This last week has been a dark day for American freedom. The Capitol Building riot was awful. But it was not a threat to our democracy. In the aftermath of that, I was still confident our democracy would endure and pass through the storm of polarization that afflicts America.
But my calm is at risk. The over-reaction to the riot that blames all Republicans for the actions of some--which Republicans quickly condemned, as I did, in contrast to Democratic verbal, governmental, and financial support for the Antifa/BLM riots for months on end in 2020--is the real threat to our democracy.
Kicking conservatives off of social media and banning platforms that conservatives prefer is absolutely an assault on free speech even if the actions are taken by private companies and not the government.
What the companies have done--and may continue to do--is not a violation of the Constitution's protection of free speech against government action. But the purge of conservatives and their ability to exercise free speech is obviously an assault on free speech given that the lack of access to the means of speech hinders the ability to exercise that government-defended right.
The decision of big tech (Apple, Google, and Amazon, right now) to suppress alternative social media sites is far worse for our freedom than the unjustified purge of conservatives from the dominant leftist-run social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Purging conservatives from the dominant sites just pushes conservatives to alternative sites. It's wrong. It hurts free speech. Yet it is not fatal to our freedom of speech.
But suppressing the alternative platforms makes that right to use an alternative platform to exercise free speech meaningless and is totalitarianism from the private sector and culture that wages war on freedom of speech. How long will the Constitution's legal protections exist if the majority of the country is willing in practice to exercise the tyranny of the majority to gut rule of law?
This ratcheting up of an existing trend to police and punish conservatives (tip to Instapundit) is horrible. It will drive conservatives more underground and will justifiably anger them:
The consequences of that action, as well as Google and Apple taking steps to ban Parler, will reach far and beyond the events at the Capitol. What those moves certainly won’t do is lead to any form of depolarization. These tech platforms are not going to be able to disappear 70 million people from the internet. Those people will simply be chased further underground where they will develop more mistrust that corporate media and Big Tech are in fact their enemy. Neither the media or Big Tech will do much to earn the trust of those people back.
This is horrifying. This is how democracy dies in darkness. And nobody on the left has the Goddamn sense to see what they are doing is wrong and dangerous. The left will find that when conservative thought is purged from the public spaces that then moderate thought is purged. Then mere liberal thought. Perhaps even progressive thought becomes "problematic."
This purge and suppression in the short run will make it even harder to poll public opinion. Which on the bright side could lead to a huge miscalculation by Democrats in the next election as conservative voters use the ballot as their only weapon.
I hope it isn't worse than that.
Have a super sparkly day.
NOTE: I wrote this over the weekend and scheduled it to publish today. At some level I hoped I was being alarmist. I hoped that the technology and social media companies would reconsider their dangerous decisions. Then I could kill this post as a worry over nothing. But no. None of my hopes happened.
I admit that I was so discouraged at the hatred and vengeance displayed by Democratic leaders against all Republicans for the actions of a few that were condemned by all Republicans that I almost just stopped blogging. I long for the days when "liberal minded" meant "open minded."
But ef that. I'll work the problem. My platform is small but I'll do what I can.
This is very bad. Americans need to change course and stand up for rule of law.
