Susan Glasser

You know, the interest of the capital D Democratic Party may well be in keeping such a ledger because they need to raise the billions of dollars that are now required in American politics because they have constituencies that have to be addressed in order to win elections.

They have a vested interest, even a very dysfunctional system, I think is sort of what you heard from that.

And from my perspective, again, what's the way to...

challenge the excesses here that are not policy disputes or partisan disputes but you know which really go to fundamental things like you know people being arrested in the streets of the country for you know trying to document armed mass agents like beating the crap out of their neighbors you right like you know that's not a question i think that's easily answered by well let's just elect a few more democrats in a small handful of swing districts right

Yeah.

By the way, the quote that you mentioned, that's a quote from Donald Trump.

If we don't have free speech, we don't have a country.

That was what he campaigned on in 2024.

capture the media companies and to silence dissent and to abuse their power to threaten jail for people who speak out in ways they don't like, who threw the Associated Press out of the White House press pool for not calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.

These are the same people who literally

whipped up a sort of existential panic in the 2024 election about the idea that woke liberal thought police were destroying the country.

Now, all of a sudden, it turns out that's not really what they were after.

And of course, you and I can say, fine, we knew they weren't on the level, but a lot of people, I think, believe them to this day.

When I talk to a lot of conservative folks, even many who don't love Donald Trump,

You know, it's an issue that they remain very, very exercised about is the idea that on America's left-leaning university campuses and, you know, in sort of various woke corporations, you know, that they are being systematically silenced.

And so in that context, to have what is really a pretty sweeping multi-front attack on free speech in Trump's second term, I think it's a signature thing.

really, of this presidency.

And it's not appreciated, in fact, because it's so multi-front and it's happening all over the place.

And that's because you can't have the kind of sweeping...

executive power that Donald Trump is claiming for himself without silencing dissent.