How Politico twists Trump on ‘Free Speech’

Jack Shafer, Politico’s senior media writer, has a big screed on how Trump twists free speech.  I don't have the time to untwist Shafer in full but I thought I might look at just the first thing that Shafer used in his attack on Trump. Did Trump call defenders of free speech "foolish people"?

It's an extract from a speech in 2015.  Here is what Trump actually said:

“We’re losing a lot of people because of the Internet, and we have to do something. We have to go see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what’s happening. And we have to talk to them. Maybe in certain areas closing that Internet up in some way [audience member cheers]… Somebody will say, ‘oh, freedom of speech, freedom of speech.’ These are foolish people. We have a lot of foolish people. We have a LOT of foolish people.”

Trump does as usual speak in a rather muddled way but his followers understand him well enough and a seasoned political writer should be able to do that too.  Once you know the whole context, it is clear that what Trump is referring to is the way social media managers censor conservative writing -- and he wants to shut that censorship down.  The foolish people are the ones who say that you cannot shut that censorship down because that would breach free speech.

So it is Shafer who is doing the twisting -- not Trump.  But misleading people is the bread and butter of the Left.  They rely on it



Having previously established himself the foe of the First Amendment—calling defenders of free speech on the internet “foolish people,” coercing White House staffers into signing nondisclosure agreements, attacking the mainstream press as the enemy of the people and urging the jailing of flag-burners—Trump has seemingly switched sides. Now he’s presenting himself as a free-speech proponent, introducing a new White House web survey whose purported fact-finding goal is to “advance FREEDOM OF SPEECH” and deter bias on social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook by getting you to file a complaint about how they’ve treated you.

SOURCE