The
Wall Street Journal published a letter from Trump. CNN's Chris Cillizza
wrote, "The op-ed section at the Journal will likely hide behind 1st Amendment free speech arguments to defend themselves. But that misses the mark, since our speech is bound in all sorts of ways already. You can't yell "bomb" on a plane without repercussions. Or "fire" in a movie theater. (Remember when we used to go to the movies? Yeah, that was fun.)
Under that same logic, you can't simply allow lies about the 2020 election to be printed in a major national newspaper under the guise of free speech. There is absolutely no evidence that any of what Trump wrote in the letter is true."
I am confident that Cillizza's summary of the letter is accurate; in other words the letter is chock full of fact-free conspiracy theories about the election. Yet the argument above is nonsense of a different kind. Ken White has identified a number of free speech tropes, and this is one fine example. We all know that one cannot yell "Fire" in a crowded theater, for example, but that does not explain how what Trump wrote fits into one of the categories of unprotected speech. He deserves a Billy Madison award. That having been said, I am worried about pernicious, long-term effects of January 6th on democracy in the United States, and Trump's letter is no help.
The Economist had an excellent article in their issue from 3 July 2021 about this general subject.
