Trump comes for the one freedom that sustains all others

I originally planned to write this next newsletter about the recent nonsense at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over vaccines — which are awesome, by the way, regardless of what idiots in Washington or Little Rock say. But as often happens with our current regime, more important nonsense has butted in.

Literally as I was typing this, ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air indefinitely for the horrific crime of saying the right wing was trying to score political points off of the killing of Charlie Kirk. The statement is undeniable and downright tame. Earlier today, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr laughably called it “the sickest conduct possible.” He suggested he would punish ABC for it. Shortly after, ABC saved him the trouble.

It’s a fitting cap to a week in the Twilight Zone that started with Kirk’s horrible shooting and proceeded with:

• Right-wing snarls for civil war that abruptly faded when the suspected shooter turned out to be a young white cisgender man from a conservative family.

• Laments for an imaginary, honorable version of Kirk, one who didn’t fill his airwaves for years with anti-gay and anti-trans hatred, naked racism and antisemitism.

• The deletion of a U.S. Department of Justice study demonstrating that most political violence in this country comes from the right.

• Trump’s filing of a $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times for insufficiently positive coverage.

• Firings for those who didn’t express the government-approved opinion of events, both here in Northwest Arkansas and around the country, with the encouragement of our governor, president, vice president and homeland security adviser, people who hold enormous power over all of our lives.

• And undisguised lust from the Trump gang at the idea of using federal power to repress liberal organizations of all kinds, working under the insane formula that not adoring Kirk and others like him = inciting violence against Kirk and others like him = terrorism.

Let me say this before the doxing begins: If it were up to me, Kirk would be alive — shunned, ignored, un-shot and alive. He was a shitty, harmful person, and being a shitty, harmful person shouldn’t be a capital crime. His killing has amplified the dangers facing everything that I love. And the irony is that his whole career depended upon the same freedom of expression that his best buddies are now destroying. Our leaders are acting as if the First Amendment does not exist.

Bosses can fire you over whatever reason. But the now-reasonable fear of government punishment for believing or not believing certain things, saying or not saying certain things, and gathering with other people to discuss or not discuss certain things isn’t just un-American. It’s anti-American. It’s anti-Constitution, anti-Declaration of Independence. It’s McCarthy, it’s Jim Crow, it’s Stalin and Putin and Mao.

Freedom of expression — of speech, assembly and petition — is the freedom that comes before all of the others. With it, you can protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for yourself and for others in nonviolent ways. Without it, you can’t meaningfully advocate for any issue you care about. It is the canvas upon which all other freedoms are painted. They vote in Russia. They don’t have free expression.

It is your right as an American to tell anyone, from your neighbor to your president, to go screw himself or, conversely, that you think he’s great. It’s your right to call him a Nazi or a hero, and to say good riddance to someone you hated or to mourn someone you cherished. This right is not subject to party affiliation.

In light of what’s happening, there’s been some lively discussion on BlueSky and other social media in recent days over whether it’s safe to register for or attend the nationwide No Kings 2.0 protest that’s set for Oct. 18. I’m part of the local Indivisible chapter that’s putting it on in Rogers, and even I think our reliance on emails and sign-ups is excessive. But I’ll be there. I will be seen and heard, and I hope some of you reading will be, too. It’s our right.