Donald Trump violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the First Amendment by pressuring ABC into suspending Jimmy Kimmel. But so, too, did Joe Biden by pressuring Facebook and YouTube into suppressing those who were questioning the efficacy of COVID vaccinations and raising questions concerning the accuracy and honesty of the official 2024 presidential election returns. If Trump’s actions were wrong, so, too, were Biden’s. Both must be held to the same standard and judged by the same criteria.
Last week I discussed why Trump was wrong to have his FCC chair, Brendan Carr, try to pressure the broadcast media to remove Trump’s critics—especially Jimmy Kimmel—from the airwaves. Some of Trump’s defenders mentioned the canceling of Roseanne Barr for a racist joke about Michelle Obama, or J. K. Rowling for her expressed opposition to transgenderism, or Tucker Carlson or Hulk Hogan for various offenses, real or imagined. I pointed out that private media corporations were well within their rights to cancel anyone they chose—they’re not limited by the First Amendment; only governments are. And if Trump and Carr had succeeded in permanently barring Kimmel from television, they would have weakened First Amendment protections for the benefit of future presidents and their administrations who likewise would have sought censorship of their critics.
But last week, Google officials revealed that they, too, had acquiesced to presidential pressure to suppress YouTube videos and channels produced by critics of the policies by which the Biden Administration sought to combat the COVID epidemic—and that this was done at the direction of Biden’s minions. Moreover, Mark Zuckerberg in August of 2024 admitted that Facebook had also succumbed to Biden Administration pressure to suppress Facebook users’ criticisms of COVID vaccines and the official election returns.
It has been argued that Biden’s motives differed from Trump’s. Biden was seeking to suppress crackpot conspiracy theories, which, in the case of COVID, could take lives if believed: One could, on the basis of bad information, refuse to be vaccinated and instead pursue other “remedies” of no actual medical value, and suffer accordingly. But Trump seems to be motivated purely by the desire for revenge against his critics.
But differences in motive should not excuse assaults on the First Amendment. Nor should differences in tactics. Biden’s tactics, based on secret and subtle manipulation of social media platforms, are no less corrosive of the First Amendment than Trump’s public use of the sledgehammer of overt and explicit threats. The First Amendment is simply too necessary to the maintenance of our freedoms to tolerate any threats to its strength, whether from liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, one motivated by what he thinks are America’s best interests or one motivated simply by the desire for vengeance.
Those who think Biden was trying to do the right thing should ponder the words of Carl Sagan, who wrote that “The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument—not the suppression of ideas.” And whether you approve of Biden or Trump, you should keep in mind that whatever tactics used for whatever reason to suppress the freedom of others can someday, sooner or later, be used to suppress your freedom of speech too. And with the end of freedom of speech will come the end of other freedoms as well.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville since 1987 and taught politics and government at Tarleton for 36 years, retiring in 2023. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990-2024). He was Mayor pro-tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Stephenville
Economic Development Authority since 2018 and as chair of the Erath County Appraisal District’s Appraisal Review Board since 2015. He is also a member of the Stephenville Rotary Club, the Board of Vestry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and the Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts’ Pecan Valley District. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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