Jamie Raskin is an avatar of free speech.
There was the Maryland congressman on MSNBC, trading insults with President Donald Trump, the most powerful man on the planet, as the House of Representatives pushed through his “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
“All of these people have gotten in line despite their misgivings because Trump is leading the way,” the Democrat said. “But Trump might not even understand what’s in the bill.”
A few minutes later, the president responded.
The Baltimore Banner thanks its sponsors. Become one.
“This DOPE has been consistently losing to me for YEARS, and I love watching his ugly face as he is forced to consistently concede DEFEAT TO TRUMP — And tonight should be another of those nights,“ Trump wrote on Truth Social. ”Raskin is a bad politician, and a TOTAL LOSER!”
Raskin responded with a barbed resharing of another presidential post.
“TACO = Trump Always Chickens Out,” he wrote on X. “RAGU = Republicans Always Give Up.”
So when Raskin called in from an American Airlines jetliner diverted to Richmond by thunderstorms last week, many in the crowd of 100 people waiting in Wheaton for him at a town hall on threats to the First Amendment groaned.
“It looks like we’re about to take off,” he said, before promising to rejoin after landing at Reagan National Airport.
The Baltimore Banner thanks its sponsors. Become one.
I sometimes wonder, in this national moment of everyone shouting at once all the time, if we would be better off if we all just got off social media and shut up for a day.
Then I remember my right to ignore it all. Raskin’s wit, Trump’s insults and all the echo chambers and curlicues of rhetoric running nonstop all the time.
And yet, what if we couldn’t refuse to listen? What if we were forced to pay attention to a government — not just the administration in Washington today — that is consumed with pushing others out of the conversation with messaging, memes and manipulation.
That’s the risk to free speech today. In the attention economy, the First Amendment may lose out to the noise, to the American Babel.
“Now is the time to stand up and push back against this assault on free expression, because even when this administration holds so much power, it remains afraid of everyday citizens speaking up and using our voices,” said Anna Gomez, the last remaining Democrat on the Federal Communications Commission.
The Baltimore Banner thanks its sponsors. Become one.
She’s been on a cross-country tour, from Los Angeles to suburban Washington, reciting a litany of attacks on the First Amendment by the Trump administration.
A weaponized FCC targets the news networks. Trump sanctions law firms that fought him in court. Congress prepares to take back funding for public radio and TV. The Justice Department sues over “DEI.” Marines and masked ICE officers discourage protests with armed parades. Foreign students who picket are jailed and deported.
Organized by the ACLU, the meeting came a week after Paramount, the parent company of CBS, settled a lawsuit by Trump. He claimed that editing for brevity and clarity in a “60 Minutes” interview with his November opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, represented bias.
The $16 million settlement — former “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft called it a “shakedown” — was a desperate move to keep the FCC from blocking Paramount’s merger with Skydance Media. And more concessions loom.
Media columnist Oliver Darcy reported that comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert — two of Trump’s most biting critics — might be forced out by the new owners who fear the price of dissent.
The Baltimore Banner thanks its sponsors. Become one.
“Actions across the federal government have demonstrated a disturbing pattern of silencing dissenting voices,” Gomez said.
My job wouldn’t exist without the First Amendment. Over the years, I’ve seen a long march of people saying you can’t say this or you must say that.
This is different.
The Paramount settlement — or the White House banning the Associated Press from the Oval Office because it doesn’t follow Trump’s “Gulf of America” edict — sends a message to journalists who have an appetite for challenging power.
State and local governments, private corporations and aggrieved individuals see what Trump does and mimic his attempts to quash free speech. Threatened with loss of access, revenue and the pain of personal attacks, some will kowtow.
The Baltimore Banner thanks its sponsors. Become one.
It’s not just about journalism.
Elon Musk raises right-wing ideas and voices over those from the left through content moderation on X. Mark Zuckerberg emphasizes “likes” over truth on Meta. AI fakes abound on every platform.
Federal agencies pump out cruel images of arrests to the sound of music or handcuffs snapping closed, and the president and his allies spread falsehoods for political and financial gain.
When powerful forces dominate all means of speech, and the government overwhelms the conversation, what’s left for the rest of us to say?
“The administration is engaged in an unprecedented attempt to shred the protections guaranteed in the First Amendment,” said Deirdre Schifeling, ACLU chief of policy and advocacy. “Whether they get away with any particular effort doesn’t matter as much as silencing the people, silencing all of us, any of us.”
The Baltimore Banner thanks its sponsors. Become one.
Raskin, true to his word, called back into the town hall once he landed at National. People had, after all, come from Baltimore, Laurel, Annapolis and Pasadena to see him.
The former constitutional law professor talked about military families who rallied to reverse the Trump administration’s removal of books deemed DEI from overseas schools, and how “No Kings” protests swelled after Trump sent the military to deter immigration protests in California.
He explained how the courts have deflected, for the moment, attempts to punish civil servants for political speech outside of work.
“This whole thing smells deeply of an ideological and political purge that’s taking place,” Raskin said.
I sometimes wish we would all just shut up for a day. The welter of voices in American life makes it hard to have an original thought.
Then I remember that the only cure for the suppression of free speech will always be more free speech.
Comments
Welcome to The Banner's subscriber-only commenting community. Please review our community guidelines.