The misguided Trump gag order
New York state judge Juan Merchan has expanded the gag order he slapped on former president Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, to include prohibiting Trump from speaking about his daughter, Loren Merchan, a Democratic political operative.
Merchan doesn’t contend that Trump threatened his daughter. Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, the elected progressive Democrat who sought the gag order and later asked for it to be ratcheted up, has not accused Trump of incitement, much less sought to arrest and charge him for such an offense. How could he? There is no evidence that Trump called for violence or even verbal attacks against Merchan’s daughter.
Instead, Merchan rationalizes that Trump is a powerful figure whose followers construe his statements as directives to resort to intimidation and, potentially, violence — even if the statements do not literally say any such thing. Ergo, Trump must be silenced as if he is guilty of coercion.
According to Merchan, Trump must be treated differently because he’s like a government, not an ordinary defendant: “The conventional ‘David vs. Goliath’ roles are no longer in play as demonstrated by the singular power [Trump’s] words have on countless others.”
But wait, isn’t Trump just using his “bully pulpit”?
After all, only two weeks ago, the Biden administration told the Supreme Court that when the government uses its “bully pulpit” — when it uses the singular power of its words to persuade others — it is not to be blamed for the abusive action of others as long as it hasn’t specifically directed them to take any such action.
The case (Murthy v. Missouri) results from a lawsuit brought by Louisiana and Missouri. The states accuse the Biden administration of intimidating social-media companies into suppressing political speech. The states do not claim that federal agents ordered the platforms to remove speech of which the government disapproved — at least, not exactly. Rather, they reason, Merchan-like, that the government’s exhortations, taken in context, had a coercive effect that induced the tech companies to act in violation of citizens’ rights.
No, no, countered the Biden Justice Department. Deputy Solicitor General Brian Fletcher explained to the justices that the administration was simply using the “bully pulpit.” Its agents weren’t coercing anyone. They were just using their powerful soapbox to convey a message that was “persuasive” — not coercive, not at all. If the social-media companies took action based on being persuaded, that’s on them. Don’t go blaming the Biden administration, because it didn’t order anybody to do anything.
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Sometimes Trump appears to have a superpower if you listen to Democrat officials who oppose Trump. The Democrats who oppose Trump need to back off and let the voters decide. At this point, it looks like the voters are more likely to vote against Biden than they are his potential opponents.
See also:
Yet Another Trump Hoax: Biden Campaign Selectively Edits Trump Comment on Illegal Aliens
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