GOP and the Challenge to Free Speech

[Dill]

(05-11-2023, 08:23 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Now, it is so stupid for these people to go "we would be violating Trump's free speech if we didn't let him do his thing." Bullshit. Trump has plenty of ways to spew his nonsense and so long as he doesn't cross the lines he is free to do so without government interference. That is what free speech is about. No media organization is restricting his free speech if they do not give him a platform and they know this. The only reason they have him or any other controversial person on their networks is because it makes people tune in. It is about ratings and they should just be honest about that.

"We"? I don't think MSM are worried about violating his free speech. That is what his supporters will claim if MSM either deny Trump air time or seek to restrict it by controlling his mike or excluding live audiences, and the like. But given the way their commentators have been discussing Trump's performance, they are concerned either about possible liability or at the least about journalistic standards. E.g., it would be irresponsible to put someone like Alex Jones on the air to give "his side" of the Sandy Hook massacre, especially if he'd be expected to double down on the claim it was a false flag operation. 

But Trump is at this point a Jones-level conspiracist. Giving him an opportunity to further defame Carroll and to praise the Capitol insurrectionists before cheering crowds is, for most MSM journalists, crossing a line. And they don't want to do it for "ratings" or whatever; they think giving Trump a platform actually harms the country. E.G, Trump also urged the GOP to double down on the debt limit because the Dems will cave. 

So the argument I see coming will be about the "lines" which shouldn't be crossed, and who draws them as gatekeepers to the national media, and how. Since Facebook and Twitter booted Trump, and Biden tried to establish a DHS dept. for monitoring disinformation, and Fox fired Tucker, there has been an effort in the RW media to elevate the first Amendment to the status of the Second in RW ideology. 

The division in our national politics turns around the fact that "the lines" are now different for different sides. One side thinks it is ok for a politician to call a reporter "nasty" for asking tough questions, and will at least tolerate the continued defamation of sexual abuse victims on national tv, along with dangerous falsehoods about election fraud, at least from members of its own party. The other side thinks all that is NOT ok. 

The RWM and GOP will charge the MSM with "bias" and "weaponizing government" in partisan support of Biden if it restricts or refuses to give Trump air time.  I'm wondering what the political effect of that might be, given the candidate in question has been successful at campaigning on grievance. Certainly we'll see them work harder at false equivalence.

But I do think we will see that Trump will force some journalistic innovations in the coming year. We may not have a GOP Dem presidential debate. The GOP debates will not look like anything we have previously seen, as wherever Trump participates, the moderators will have to have additional power to cut mikes and otherwise intervene. This will be a restriction on Trump's speech, even though it won't be government censorship. An illustration between actual freedom of speech and such freedom as an abstract, legal right. (Civil rights advocates have understood this difference for decades. Now maybe Trump gets to as well.)