You are free to say anything you'd like, so long as it's exactly what we also like

Got something on your mind? Go ahead, let it out. It’s a free country, after all. You’re allowed to say anything you’d like, so long as it’s exactly what we also like and not anything we don’t like.

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I’ve written about this aspect of our country’s slippage into totalitarianism a few times before, though not tied to quite such high stakes:

Free speech is the backbone of our country and its democracy. Without it, we plunge into autocracy. And so it must be more than simply allowed—it must be held up as a beacon for the rest of the world to witness. We must always put free speech first. Just as long as I personally get to decide at the very last minute what constitutes free speech.

(…)

You see, freedom of speech is something I never fully understood, so I decided that instead of learning more about it, I would understand it by just making it up as I go along. To me, freedom of speech is more cooking than baking—it’s forgiving, and you don’t really have to follow the directions. They’re more like guidelines! After all, that’s what our constitution is full of: guidelines. The Bill of Guidelines. The Eighteenth Guideline. Guideline vs. Guideline.

The stakes today could not be higher.

The kidnapping and disappearing of student activist and legal resident Mahmoud Khalil—by agents of the state who refused to present a warrant, hung up on Khalil’s lawyer, and ripped him from his pregnant wife—is not only an illegal abduction, it is a test. If the Trump administration can get away with this, they can get away with every other kind of suppression of dissent. This is the silencing that silence supports. It will come for everyone until nothing stands against the fascist state.

This is how it begins: targeting those with the least sympathy. As

Elad Nehorai

wrote yesterday on Instagram:

The fascists work in stages. They start with those with the least sympathy from the general public and then increasingly target the rest of their people. This allows them to legitimize and normalize their methods with minimal pushback.

(…)

Their goal isn’t to stop antisemitism. It is to normalize breaking the law to target enemies without consequence.

(…)

Fascists do not stop grabbing power. They keep taking until they are stopped. Anything happening today is a microcosm of what they want to accomplish in the future. In other words, you can’t pick and choose who you defend. You can’t wait for the right time to take a stand. You can’t wait for someone more sympathetic to fight for. Because by the time you do, it will be too late. The machine will have been built, and resistance will be far harder.

How can you push back against all this? Vocalize your dissent. Talk to your friends and family. Call your representatives. Most of all, don’t buy in. Don’t accept any narrative that some group of people or even a specific person is worthy of a different set of rights. Because when they come for them, it means they’re coming for you.

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What else

Your tax dollars are now protecting Elon Musk’s flailing businesses. After pardoning thousands of terrorists who attacked the nation’s Capitol and killed police officers, Trump has learned his lesson and *checks notes* decided to treat people who vandalize a car dealership as the real terrorists.

As an American, it’s your duty to shame your friends into selling their Teslas.

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I turned this past weekend’s newsletter into a full-fledged piece for McSweeney’s.

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New stuff coming with The New Yorker and The San Francisco Standard. Keep an eye out.

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What I’ve been reading

The Fork in the Road, Mark Greif

“Odd as it may sound, the antidote to totalitarianism, recorded by those who lived through it, is associational life. De-atomization, and the creation of loyalties to other people that can’t be, or simply aren’t, coordinated with a regime. In a time of temptation to the bad, or to the worse, association is what lets people find the courage to refuse, and the practical standing to do so.”