The Expanding Attacks on Speech

Blocking legitimate journalists, deleting language, canceling GOP town halls, cutting university funding—these are all connected

(Illustration by z wei via Getty Images)

I talk a lot about the need to speak out. This emanates from my belief that it’s critical that in confronting this hostile, anti-democratic regime we don’t lose sight of what’s true and false, what’s right and wrong. I worry that as the propaganda intensifies and the public is denied the truth, our capacity to grasp reality will get harder and harder.

It’s alarming to see how quickly and energetically Donald Trump and his enablers are attacking free speech and working to silence dissent. Sometimes their intent is obvious, but other times they are using hot-button issues as subterfuge to misdirect the public. Let’s look at a handful of their actions to see how they are part of the same hateful plot against free speech.

Press Corps Manipulation: The renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America at first appeared mostly laughable. But apart from Trump’s obvious imperialist ambitions, it soon became clear that he would target journalists and media organizations that refuse to consent to his desire. Sadly, Google quickly assented to the name change on its Google Maps, but the Associated Press was among the media companies that has stood by the Gulf of Mexico.

Trump responded by banning AP reporters from White House press briefings, leading the AP to file suit against the administration. In its 18-page complaint, the AP said it was suing “to vindicate its rights to the editorial independence guaranteed by the United States Constitution and to prevent the executive branch from coercing journalists to report the news using only government-approved language.”

But note that this preceded Trump’s plan to remake the White House press pool with a thicket of toadies—stripping away the traditional commitment to the major news outlets there to represent a democratic public’s concerns—to make room for media people chosen by Trump’s press operatives and serve his interests. (“We reserve the right to decide who gets to go into the Oval Office,” Trump’s sycophantic press secretary and propagandist Karoline Leavitt said.)

It’s no surprise that press conferences now include questions praising Dear Leader that seem crafted in Pyongyang, North Korea. “First of all, congratulations on the fantastic 24 days of your presidency,” began one. I’ll never get over the obedient Brian Glenn, correspondent for a right-wing cable network called Real America’s Voice, who abused his access to the Oval Office to participate in the ambush of Volodymyr Zelensky by mocking Ukraine’s wartime president. “Why don't you wear a suit?” Glenn asked with a snickering tone, adding, “Do you own a suit? A lot of Americans have problems with you not respecting the dignity of this office.”

Eliminating Words: But these attacks on the press only begin to illustrate the assault on free speech and the First Amendment. Of course, Trump’s gaslighting in a day-one executive order said the opposite: “Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society.” In fact, a series of Trump executive orders made clear that his regime would be ending programs and policies related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), as well as changing and deleting words on government websites that demonstrated the federal government’s commitment to DEI. While it’s the prerogative of any administration to make changes to highlight its priorities, the scale and speed of the effort to eradicate both the programs and the words that address DEI is chilling.

A new report by The New York Times identified hundreds of words that had been deleted or amended on hundreds of federal government websites, as well as others flagged for review in order to target grants, contracts and other government projects. As you might expect, that includes words related to diversity (such as diverse, diversify, diverse communities, diverse groups, bias, cultural identity), equity (equality, equal opportunity, equitable) and inclusion (inclusivity, inclusive leadership, belong, sense of belonging, marginalized), it also includes almost anything you can think of related to race (racial justice, racism, racial inequality, antiracist, Black, Latinx, hispanic minority, Native American, indigenous community, segregation, systemic) and sexual or gender identity (biologically female, sexual preferences, transgender, trans, LGBTQ, they/them, feminism, gender, orientation, even pregnant person).

And anything that even hints at prejudice, bigotry or their impact? Not in Trump’s America. Out goes all references to bias, hate speech, marginalized, stereotype, underrepresented, underprivileged, underserved, vulnerable populations, even victims and trauma. In other words, out goes understanding and knowledge, in comes ignorance and hate.

Canceling Town Halls: Republican leaders have also grasped that they can advance their agenda by refusing to engage with their constituents, a growing number of whom reject their policies. Trump activated the efforts to suppress growing criticism by lying in a Truth Social post last week that the town hall protests are the work of “paid troublemakers.”

The chair of the GOP’s campaign arm, North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson, then privately urged House Republicans to stop holding in-person town halls. House Speaker Mike Johnson continued the evidence-free lie after the GOP meeting, telling reporters, “There are people who do this as a profession, they're professional protesters.” And, he added, it’s best not to “play into that.”

How much longer will GOP representatives even participate in public events as the public’s anger mounts? Note that when New York Rep. Mike Lawler, a Republican, spoke at a rally Friday addressing planned budget cuts to Medicaid that attracted thousands of angry and fearful residents, he faced a rising chorus of booing.

“I understand the concern about Medicaid,” Lawler told the crowd, but then insisted that record federal debt and spending had to come down. The goal of cuts, he said, was to “eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.” Cries of “liar” were heard.

The pressure by GOP leadership for representatives to stop answering questions makes the responsibility of elected Democrats to speak out and angry voters to protest increasingly important. The American Revolution was fought over the need for representation against rulers that tyrannically ignored the peoples’ needs. It’s not enough for Republicans to refuse to hear from the majority that disagrees with their far-right agenda.

Slashing University Funding: On Friday, the Trump regime announced that it was canceling $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University, claiming the school failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitism and other harassment. This came on the heels of Trump posting last week that they would “STOP” federal funding to any school that “allows illegal protests.”

There is a legitimate conversation to be had about whether Columbia and other colleges found the right balance between protecting students from harassment and ensuring the free-speech rights of pro-Palestine protestors. But note how Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., got in on the act by saying in a press release that “censorship and false narratives of woke cancel culture have transformed our great universities into greenhouses for this deadly and virulent pestilence.”

Do you really believe that Trump and RFK are so concerned about the real issue of rising antisemitism? Or is this simply part of the strategy to target higher education, chill speech and silence dissent? This comes on top of the aggressive pressure for colleges and universities to end programs and research projects addressing DEI.

Recall the hit list released a month ago by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, slavishly devoted to get in on the act by identifying 3,400 grants totaling $2 billion that he claimed promote DEI and advance “neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda.” Cruz proudly and obediently boasted that Trump’s administration is “taking a sledgehammer to the radical left’s woke nonsense.”

In response to the announced major slashing of federal funding, Columbia’s interim president Katrina Armstrong wrote in an email that the school is “committed to working with the federal government to address their legitimate concerns.” It’s not hard to read the fear behind Armstrong’s words. And it’s not just Columbia in the cross-hairs.

A newly created Justice Department task force has suddenly prioritized combatting antisemitism and serving civil rights by targeting nine other top universities that experienced campus protests. These include George Washington, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, New York University, the University of Minnesota, the University of California in Los Angeles and Berkeley, and the University of Southern California.

Notice the charming words in a statement from Leo Terrell, who’s leading the task force. “The President, Attorney General Pamela Bondi, and the entire Administration are committed to ensuring that no one should feel unsafe or unwelcome on campus because of their religion,” he said. If only that were their genuine concern.

We are watching the authoritarian playbook unfold at an intense pace, often making it hard to grasp how interconnected these antagonistic acts are. Chaos, confusion and fear are tools this administration is exploiting to achieve its hateful agenda.

It will be up to each of us to take a second look at each outrageous act of aggression and see how one is connected to another. That’s especially true of those that seem well-intended: Increase free speech! Combat antisemitism! Protect religious differences!

The speed may lead us to miss how chilling all this is. But that’s why speaking out is so critical right now. If they succeed at blocking free speech and silencing dissent, the ability of our fellow citizens to know what’s true and false will only grow dimmer. We need to keep the light shining bright.

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