Trump's assault on the First Amendment continues

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.