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As someone who pays close attention to the news, I thought this past week was exhausting. I’m not going to relitigate all of it, because it’s too easy to become a fatalist or a nihilist if you’re only paying attention to the bad news.
So, for the next couple of posts, I’m going to focus instead on the positive, namely where I think Democrats have opportunities to change the narrative and win (or win back) voters.
What I’ll talk through in this post: the Trump administration is using the might of the federal government to come down hard on free speech. This is dangerous for America—and an opportunity for Democrats, if they choose to take it.
Article summary:
Americans across the board feel less comfortable sharing their opinions and worry that the government is threatening their rights to free speech.
That fear is especially present for Republicans and young men—creating an opportunity for Democrats to win back a demographic that’s moving away from them.
Democrats can own the issue of free speech, but it’ll require them to have difficult conversations in uncomfortable spaces. They haven’t always done that well.
Free speech had a rough week
In case you need a reminder, here’s why this is salient:
Trump threatened to pull broadcast licenses for networks [ [link removed] ] that are “against” him.
Jimmy Kimmel, after making a joke related to Trump’s reaction to Charlie Kirk’s assassination, had his show suspended by ABC [ [link removed] ]. (It returned last night [ [link removed] ].)
Brendan Carr [ [link removed] ], the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, suggested that the government would pressure Disney [ [link removed] ] (which owns ABC) to pull the show: “Frankly, when you see stuff like this—I mean, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
Americans worry about losing their free speech
All of this is notable because Americans, for a while now, have become increasingly worried about their freedom of speech.
In 2020, 46% of Americans [ [link removed] ] felt that they were less free to speak their mind than they once were. For context, only 13% of Americans felt that way during the height of McCarthyism, a period famous for its suppression of free speech.
Five years on, people—especially men and Republicans—worry that they can’t freely express their opinions.
54% of Americans [ [link removed] ] say that “the biggest threat to free speech is the government” vs. 25% who say that’s not the case—and this poll was done back in February. A more recent survey (from Sept. 19) finds that Americans believe the government is [ [link removed] ]by far [ [link removed] ] the biggest threat [ [link removed] ] to free speech.
59% of Americans [ [link removed] ] say that “freedom of speech has become more limited during my lifetime,” vs. 24% who say that’s not the case. 63% of men (vs. 55% of women) [ [link removed] ] agree that free speech has become more limited, and 29% of men in college [ [link removed] ] say that they’re not comfortable sharing their political opinions (vs. 22% of women).
Let’s look more at that February poll [ [link removed] ], specifically focusing on partisan and gender divides. 60% of Republicans [ [link removed] ], vs. 48% of Democrats, say that the government is the biggest threat to free speech. 69% of Republicans, vs. 48% of Democrats, say that free speech has become more limited in their lifetime.
All of this is an opportunity for Democrats to create a wedge issue—especially for young men, a group that moved hard towards Republicans [ [link removed] ] in the last election.
Ted Cruz is right (?!)
I’d seen the reporting that Ted Cruz forcefully came out against [ [link removed] ] FCC Chairman Carr’s “the easy way or the hard way” comment, but I wanted to listen for myself. Here’s the segment from his podcast [ [link removed] ], from the 21:11 mark.
Cruz’s logic for being against Carr’s comment isn’t necessarily mine. His take, basically, is that if Republicans weaponize the FCC now, just imagine what the Democrats will do when they’re in power!
But the broader point—that it’s a very dangerous precedent for the government to threaten the revocation of broadcast licenses for stations whose programming they don’t like—is a good one, and one where I agree with what Cruz is saying.
Ted Cruz here isn’t alone among Republicans [ [link removed] ], by the way, and there are lots of elected Republicans [ [link removed] ] and right-leaning media personalities who are coming out and saying the same.
Some of this, I’m sure, is driven by the genuine philosophical belief that this is wrong. But these people (usually) aren’t fools, and I think they see that the Trump administration is creating an opening for Democrats that wasn’t there before.
The left needs to own up to its mistakes on this issue
During the Biden years, a well-worn Republican talking point—one that Ted Cruz [ [link removed] ] himself used [ [link removed] ]—is that the Democrats, in cahoots with the largest tech companies, were censoring free speech. That’s a bit of a different conversation, because tech companies aren’t part of the government, but the point was clearly resonant.
Either way, in this context, Democrats need to reckon with the fact that things were taken too far in the wake of the George Floyd protests in 2020 and into the early years of the Biden presidency.
As I noted earlier [ [link removed] ], it was a heated moment, and almost half of Americans [ [link removed] ] in 2020 felt less free to speak their minds than they’d felt before.
The New York Times apologized for publishing an op-ed [ [link removed] ] from a sitting United States Senator, which was crazy then and seems crazier in hindsight. It ultimately led to opinion editor James Bennet’s resignation [ [link removed] ] and the persistent accusation—not without reason [ [link removed] ]—that the NYT had become too activist.
Fair or not, Democrats became [ [link removed] ]—and are still labelled [ [link removed] ]—as the party of the “woke” and all that entails, something Democrats began addressing way too late [ [link removed] ].
Universities, which should be the home of open debate and discourse, were often hostile to speakers, students, and professors from the political right [ [link removed] ].
For a while, there was a real sense that saying the wrong thing (at work, on social media, etc.) could cost you your job [ [link removed] ].
Does that last point sound familiar? We’re seeing something very similar happen now after Charlie Kirk’s assassination [ [link removed] ]—with the explicit encouragement of the Vice President [ [link removed] ], I’ll note.
There was also a sense, a few years ago, that Big Tech was in the pocket of the left. Just looking at who went to Trump’s inauguration [ [link removed] ], and looking at who kisses the ring today [ [link removed] ], it’s impossible to make that argument anymore.
Here’s the opportunity for Democrats
This is where I see an opening:
The perceived crackdown on language and open discourse, especially once it accelerated in 2020, was unpopular and led to pushback from voters. Here’s a chance to reshape the narrative.
Tech companies, which Republicans have seen as stifling free speech [ [link removed] ], are squarely in the pocket of the President now. Big Tech is also unpopular [ [link removed] ] and trusted by few people [ [link removed] ]; Democrats can and should flip that narrative too.
People worry their free speech is under attack—with good reason. The President and his administration are very explicitly using government power to attack our right to free speech.
Democrats should lean in hard on this issue. Go after Republicans who have rolled over (and call out their hypocrisy). Go on Republican talk shows and podcasts. Don’t worry about placating the annoying Democrats of Twitter, who don’t represent the average Democrat [ [link removed] ], much less the average voter.
There’s a chance to make inroads here with voters of all stripes, especially Republicans and young men. But that requires showing that Democrats can put their money where their mouth is, and have uncomfortable conversations in unfamiliar spaces. Standing up for free speech is only hard when you’re talking to people whose views you find objectionable.
Address the dangers of Big Tech and the perils of FCC overreach on Fox News and conservative talk radio; talk to Ben Shapiro and Megyn Kelly about policy proposals to depoliticize the FCC (to protect against the excesses of either party). This is an issue where calling out Republican hypocrisy would bolster the argument that Democrats are making—especially if Democrats can honestly acknowledge their own issues in the past.
I hope our elected officials and candidates are up to that challenge.
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By the way, I really believe satire and comedy is critical now more than ever. Here’s what I wrote a couple of weeks ago; it might be even more resonant this week:

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