On Censorial & Persecutorial Policies

Liberty is not partisan; it is an imperative for a freedom-loving people.

So, too, silence in the face of tyranny is unforgivable; it is the mark of cowardly people.

The Madisonian promise, articulated in the First Amendment to our Constitution, guarantees all Americans the right to speak their minds, publish their criticisms, assemble peacefully in protest, and petition for a redress of their grievances. That is the American way; it is our constitutional birthright.

Such rights are abridged when, as we have recently experienced, the government sets out to:

  • Persecute its political opponents
  • Silence the press
  • The use of the regulatory process to punish critics
  • Repress peaceful protests
  • Spitefully sue those who criticize the president
  • Deceive the American public, and
  • Thwart transparency

Yet these have been and continue to be the strategic plans of the Trump Administration.

The First Amendment is the best antidote to oppression.

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On July 13, 2026, the President declared, “we want total freedom of the press” and “if we don’t have free speech, then we just don’t have a free country.” By any measure, these statements are outrageously hypocritical. As Floyd Abrams (America’s foremost advocate for free expression) has observed: “I think that [President Trump] is more hostile to the press than any of his predecessors in American history.”

“Democratic societies survive and thrive,” says historian Keisha Blain, “when citizens can participate fully in the political process, confident that their ideas and values will be heard and respected even when they differ from those of others. The goal is not consensus or complete agreement. Rather, a democracy depends on broad participation and a shared commitment to democratic institutions and processes.” Today, that ideal is under repeated attack.

The best way to combat such oppression is to exercise our right to vote and our right to protest (see the Toolkit on this website). As Justice Louis Brandeis put it nearly a century ago: “Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards.”