Want to Defeat Joe Biden? Look to the 1800 Election and Make Free Speech the Key Issue in 2024
June 27, 20241/2
Below is my column in USA Today onwhy the opponents of President Joe Biden should make free speech the focus of this election. With the Supreme Court taking an off ramp in Murthy v. Missouri on Internet censorship, the free speech community is left, for now, with the political process to protect free speech. It is a potentially unifying issue for many Americans who are alarmed by the current anti-free speech movement. I have previously written that theBiden Administration has chilling analogies to the Adams Administration in the weaponization of the legal system and the crackdown on free speech. What should most concern Biden is the possibility of another aspect of history repeating itself: a defeat like the one in 1800.
Here is the column:
Since his dystopian speech outside of Independence Hall in 2022, President Joe Biden has made “democracy is on the ballot” his campaign theme. Pundits have repeated the mantra, claiming that if Biden is not elected, American democracy will perish.
While some of us have challenged these predictions, theother presidential candidates are missing a far more compelling argument going into this election. While democracy is not on the ballot this election, free speech is.
The 2024 election is looking strikingly similar to the election of 1800 and, if so, it does not bode well for Biden.
In my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” released last week, I discuss our long struggle with free speech as a nation. It is an unvarnished history with powerful stories of our heroes and villains in the struggle to define what Justice Louis Brandeis called our “indispensable right.”
One of the greatest villains in that history was President John Adams, who used the Alien and Sedition Acts to arrest his political opponents – including journalists, members of Congress and others. Many of those prosecuted by the Adams administration were Jeffersonians. In the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson ran on the issue and defeated Adams.
Government efforts to limit free speech are Orwellian
We are now seeing what is arguably the most dangerous anti-free speech movement in our history.President Joe Biden is, in my view, the most anti-free speech president since Adams. Under his administration, we have seen a massive censorship system funded and directed by the government. A federal judge described the system as “Orwellian” in its scope and impact.
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/06/27/want-to-defeat-joe-biden-look-to-the-1800-election-and-make-free-speech-the-key-issue-in-2024/#more-220568