So Reince Priebus said on yesterday’s ABC News that Trump is looking at abolishing the First Amendment, because reporters hurt his feelings:
Karl says, accurately, that that kind of clampdown on 1st Amendment rights would require amending the Constitution. Is that what Priebus means, Karl asks? Yes, it is, says Priebus.
Now one might respond to this saying, ‘Okay, technically that’s what he said. But he probably doesn’t actually mean it.’
To which I think the answer is, sure maybe he doesn’t mean but why would anyone assume that? He said it and repeated it. The changes President Trump wants are blocked by decades of decades of jurisprudence which is little contested, unlike other hot button points of constitutional law. If you want what Trump wants, you have to amend the constitution – and not the constitution in general but the 1st Amendment specifically. Amending the 1st Amendment to allow the head of state to sue people who say things he doesn’t like amounts to abolishing it.
None of these are tenuous connections. Each link in the chain of reasoning follows logically from the other.
This, needless to say, should set off everyone’s alarm bells. If this isn’t really what Priebus meant, he should be given the chance to categorically disavow it. The plain meaning of the words, on the record, is that abridging or abolishing the 1st Amendment is something the Trump White House is currently considering.
Big deal.
And that pesky right to assemble peacefully – I bet they love that too.
You can’t run a government the way you run a corporation despite what the Capitalists keep telling us.
Corporations are “top-down” institutions and governments are “bottom-up” institutions.
That point is lost on dictators and other authoritarians.
So I’m a little curious as to how such an amendment would affect a small list of things:
The movie that the “Citizens United” case was about.
Fox News.
Breitbart.
Alex Jones.
Rush Limbaugh, and the rest of hate radio.
Is it just for the president to use, or do any verifiable lies in the media qualify? Is it strictly civil, or is he talking criminal penalties? Is he implying that it was a bad idea for St. Ronnie to take the fairness doctrine out behind the barn and shoot it in its head? Did he think of any of that before running his mouth, or does he believe that the propaganda machine that keeps his base in line is no longer necessary?