Free Speech Under Attack

Poulsbo, Sept. 21, 2025

Timothy Snyder says the essential reason we have freedom of speech is to speak truth to power. This is why comedians are very important. Comedians are our court jesters: their jokes have a serious role, to mock the absurdities and evils of things that governments do.

Comedians and their satire matter, and because they matter, they’re a bellwether for tyranny. In Germany in the 30s, when the Nazis censored and persecuted comedians, it was a sign that freedom of speech was going out the window for everyone else as well. The Roman emperor Augustus, Napoleon in France, Tsar Nicholas I in Russia, Franco in Spain, and in our time, Vladimir Putin, were a mirthless bunch, and all cracked down on comedians.

Now Trump, who can’t stand being mocked, has used economic bullying, through his toady head of the FCC, to get rid of Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel, and he intends to bring down Seth Meyers, Jon Stewart, and Jimmy Fallon too.  The current crackdown on freedom of speech was abetted by the assassination of Charlie Kirk ten days ago. The president, rather than calling for unity, or singing “Amazing Grace” as Obama did after a church massacre in South Carolina, blamed what he called the “radical left” for this violence even before the shooter was identified. The Kirk murder supplied MAGA’s pretext for fabricating a myth of a conspiracy--that there’s a left-wing conspiracy that is violent.

Fictional conspiracies can take everybody in and become dangerous: this happened in the Soviet Union in the late 30s, and in the McCarthy era here in the 1950s. Widespread terror and panic resulted from conspiracies that didn’t exist.  Trump’s Administration was censoring speech early on. Don’t forget the hundreds of words it eliminated from official government websites—words such as gender, abortion, mental health, minorities, environmental quality, discrimination, race, ethnicity, underrepresented, diversity, disability… In the novel 1984, which George Orwell wrote in the 1930s, the authoritarian government takes control of language, and I remember in high school thinking how crazy and extreme that idea was, that it could never happen in real life. But now we have the Gulf of America, the Department of War, and the official elimination of words like disability and minorities. In 2025 we are living in 1984.

Trump and his evil brain Stephen Miller can say whatever they want—but they are now stifling the freedom of others to speak. Jimmy Kimmel said nothing about Charlie Kirk himself, only suggested that Kirk’s killer might belong to the right, not the left. But that doesn’t stop Stephen Miller from generalizing about the left in general, as if the left in general killed Charlie Kirk. He went on to call left-wing organizations a “vast domestic terror movement,” which he pledges to destroy. He writes: “In recent days we have learned just how many Americans in positions of authority — child services, law clerks, hospital nurses, teachers, government workers, even Department of Defense employees — have been deeply and violently radicalized,” calling them “the consequence of a vast, organized ecosystem of indoctrination.”

In the most twisted, dangerous rhetoric, he maintains that “leftist ideology” destroys truth and beauty, and that it’s Democrats who advocate violence:  “Its adherents organize constantly to tear down and destroy every mark of grace and beauty while lifting up everything monstrous and foul. It is an ideology that leads, always, inevitably and willfully, to violence—violence against those [who] uphold order, who uphold faith, who uphold family, who uphold all that is noble and virtuous in this world. It is an ideology whose one unifying thread is the insatiable thirst for destruction.” Wow.   

Miller has vowed to use the power of the government against its political enemies. He warns: “[T]he power of law enforcement under President Trump’s leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and, if you’ve broken the law, to take away your freedom.”   In a related move, Trump is invoking the killing of Charlie Kirk as the reason to shut down a wide variety of nonprofits and charitable organizations, illogical as that is. 136 nonprofits he’s targeting issued a joint statement yesterday, condemning Trump’s desire for political retaliation: “We reject attempts to exploit political violence to mischaracterize our good work or restrict our fundamental freedoms, like freedom of speech and the freedom to give.” […] “Attempts to silence speech, criminalize opposing viewpoints and misrepresent and limit charitable giving undermine our democracy and harm all Americans.”  

Comedian Wanda Sykes adds, “Trump didn’t end the Ukraine War or solve Gaza within his first week, but he did end freedom of speech within his first year.”   And how do the administration’s distortions and attacks filter down to us, the people? Are you feeling a little less free to say what you think these days?

The Substack writer Daniel Pinchbeck posted on Wednesday: ““I find I have thoughts I hardly dare to say in a public forum right now. Simply expressing myself suddenly feels like a dangerous thing to do. That, in itself, is an intriguing sensation. I value our First Amendment rights, the freedom of self-expression, tremendously. I would rather die than live in an Orwellian world where we cannot speak the truth as we see and feel it.”  

This is now how we have to think under authoritarianism. If we don’t continue to assert our rights, if we go all silent and submissive, if we cave to the mad king like ABC and CBS have done, like Columbia and other universities are doing, like the Washington Post under Bezos, premier law firms, and other corporations and other entire countries have done, then there’s no difference between us and the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany, except for our mistaken notion that America is still a free nation.

A neighbor of ours said, “Don’t worry. This will pass.” What monstrous privilege and passivity that remark represents. It’s what allowed a racist felon to get re-elected and to crush democracy. Quite to the contrary, dear neighbor, this is a critical time to take action. How can we take action?

We can take action by boycotting the companies that are surrendering to the tyrant, and those that advertise on local news stations – let’s specifically mention KOMO Channel 4 because it is owned by Sinclair, a media company that has removed Kimmel from all the ABC affiliates it owns.  

What else can you do? You can protect the most vulnerable among us. Contribute to food drives and food banks. Our “Home Depot customer service” actions have enjoyed much success—you can join our teams that do that. Or you can call a company that advertises on KOMO and tell them directly why you’re boycotting them. You can cancel your Disney +, Hulu, and Paramount subscriptions. You can write to your representatives and better yet, attend their town halls and tell them how you want them to represent us. These things make a difference.

As another wonderful Substack columnist, Waj Ali, says, fascism is leaky. We can find those leaks and chip away, chip away, to make them leak bigger.   Above all, do something – regularly, with other people, make sure you’re doing something. Do something to express yourself, speak truth to power. Attend rallies, wave signs that do the job of serious court jesters, feel the solidarity, regain your sanity in the community of these rallies.

And be loud! Speak truth to power! Use that freedom of speech!   Look ahead to the big national rallies of October 18—the one in Poulsbo on October 18 will be at 2:30 in Waterfront Park. Free speech is not about the people in power having their way and lying and saying whatever they want, it’s the opposite of that. Free speech is about you finding your voice and sharing it.    What are we going to do with our freedom of speech? 

Be loud! Speak truth to power!