MAGA bad faith attacks on “wokeness” and left-wing
“censorship” have obscured their thinly veiled effort to eradicate the history
of non-whites, normalize racism, silence critics, and demand that white
Christian nationalism be foisted on the rest of us. A year into Donald Trump’s
autocratic rule, no one should doubt what the regime is up to.
Unabashed racism and antisemitism are part and parcel of MAGA’s verbiage
and ideology. The vendetta against progressive academics; the movement to establish religion (and anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry) in public schools; and the assault on
DEI (going as far as eliminating grants designed to combat certain population’s
health issues) underscore the game-plan to insulate their own repulsive speech
and falsehoods from any adverse consequences (social, political, economic or
professional), while demolishing facts and crushing everyone else’s free speech
rights.
The Trump regime enforces this double standard with
authoritarian venom. From punishing foreign students for pro-Palestinian
demonstrations to physically assaulting and threatening peaceful anti-ICE
protests to frivolous lawsuits bullying media outlets and clamping down
on late night talk show hosts, the MAGA regime has undertaken
a censorship campaign not experienced since the Red Scare. Two recent cases highlight Trump’s dual threat
to free speech: enforced conformity to a MAGA worldview, and punishment for
dissent.
In a decision this week, U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe for the Eastern
District of Pennsylvania held that the Trump regime’s removal of an educational
display about enslaved people from “The President’s House” exhibit at the
Independence National Historical Park impermissibly attempted to rewrite
history, warranting a TRO on behalf of the city of Philadelphia to stop further
desecration of the site.
Rufe began powerfully:
As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now
existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to
determine whether the federal government has the power it claims—to dissemble
and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical
facts. It does not.
This was an easy case based on a simple reading of the
relevant statute and undisputed historical fact. The legislation at issue
authorized the Interior Department “to enter into cooperative agreements with
the city of Philadelphia to assist in the preservation and interpretation of
the property.” It specified that “no changes or alterations shall be made in
the property within the Independence Hall including its buildings and grounds .
. . except by mutual agreement.” The Trump regime acted unilaterally, and
hence, illegally.
After dismissing specious claims that the court lacked
jurisdiction to review the matter, Rufe held that the cooperative agreement
authorizing such displays “clearly emphasizes the role of slavery and the
importance of recognizing paradoxes at Independence National Historical Park.”
Rufe slammed the government’s argument that “truth is no longer self-evident,
but rather the property of the elected chief magistrate and his appointees and
delegees, at his whim to be scraped clean, hidden, or overwritten. . . .
[s]olely because, as Defendants state, it has the power.”
The court knocked down the Trump regime’s argument that
it alone could determine facts (just as courts have refused to buy into the
regime’s lies concerning an “invasion” from Venezuela or a “rebellion” allowing national guard to occupy cities).
“An agency, whether the Department of the Interior, NPS, or any other agency,
cannot arbitrarily decide what is true, based on its own whims or the whims of
the new leadership, regardless of the evidence before it,” Rufe concluded.
In sum, Rufe upheld the proposition that the Trump
regime, so long as district courts have the will to enforce the Constitution,
does not have the power to override statutes, disregard history, or exercise
dictatorial control over our national narrative. “Each person who visits the
President’s House and does not learn of the realities of founding-era slavery
receives a false account of this country’s history.” This principle is
essential to preserving the true history of America while staving off dictatorship.
Crushing dissent
In another recent holding, U.S. District Judge Richard J.
Leon for the District of Columbia blasted Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s
effort to punish retired Navy officer Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) for a video
with five House and Senate colleagues reminding armed services personnel to
follow the Constitution. (The utterly dimwitted and constitutional ignoramus
Jeanine Pirro failed to obtain an indictment against Kelly and his colleagues.)
Leon declared that while current service members have
less robust First Amendment rights, “no court has ever extended those
principles to retired service members, much less a retired service member
serving in Congress and exercising oversight responsibility over the military.
This Court will not be the first to do so!”
The judge, showing a preference for exclamation marks and
fondness for folk lyrics, also rebuked Hegseth’s claim that the court lacked
sufficient facts to decide the case:
This Court has all it needs to conclude that Defendants
have trampled on Senator Kelly’s First Amendment freedoms and threatened the
constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees. After all, as Bob
Dylan famously said, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind
blows.” To say the least, our retired veterans deserve more respect from their
Government, and our Constitution demands they receive it!
Leon concluded that rather “than trying to shrink the
First Amendment liberties of retired service members, Secretary Hegseth and his
fellow Defendants might reflect and be grateful for the wisdom and expertise
that retired service members have brought to public discussions and debate on
military matters in our Nation over the past 250 years.” He added, “If so, they
will more fully appreciate why the Founding Fathers made free speech the first
Amendment in the Bill of Rights!”
These cases illustrate well-established features of
Trump’s lawless regime that either utterly lacks any understanding of the First
Amendment, American history, and basic legislative interpretation, or (more
likely) chooses to disregard all three. It aims to harass, chill speech, and
penalize its opponents for daring to object to the frightful MAGA worldview.
Trump’s bludgeoning of opponents about inarguable facts
(e.g., George Washington owned slaves, military personnel are obligated to
follow the Constitution — not the whims of one mad king) is as much intended
for his adherents’ consumption. His insistence on blatant falsehoods (e.g.,
election denial) forces allies to debase themselves by embracing obvious
falsehoods. Forcing his own side to comply with absurd and easily disprovable
assertions is a telltale sign of an aspiring strongman.
Finally, the regime’s lawyers’ incessant refrain that
courts have no role in controlling the executive shows Trump’s utter contempt
for checks and balances. Increasingly, however, courts appear to be growing
impatient with this arrogant assumption of executive supremacy. If they want to
deter further overreach and deter disobedience to court orders, judges should
start sanctioning government lawyers for speciously arguing that the courts are
irrelevant.
We need not indulge MAGA cultists who insist they are
virtuous victims, muzzled by the left. The only ones muzzling critics are the
historical and constitutional know-nothings who repeatedly try to rewrite
history to comport with their goal of establishing a white supremacist
autocracy. Such maneuvers are un-American — and cannot stand if our democracy
is to survive.
-Jennifer Rubin, The Contrarian is reader-supported. To receive new
posts, help with litigation, and keep this opposition movement alive and
engaged, please join the fight by becoming a paid subscriber.
