After a second reported assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump Sunday, his running mate called out censorship as a precursor to political violence.
While anti-free speech radicals claim that censorship prevents political violence, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) ripped that false narrative apart. Vance called out the “form of moral blackmail, designed not to make anyone safe but to shut everyone up” in a lengthy X post reacting to the second attempted assassination of Trump at the GOP presidential nominee’s West Palm Beach golf course. Instead of discussing differences in political views, leftists in the media and government insist that opinions differing from their own are dangerous just by being spoken or posted online. Vance insisted that this anti-free speech attitude doesn’t stop violence but rather is intended simply to “shut everyone up.”
Vance drew a connection between censorship of speech and physical attacks. “Reject censorship and you reject political violence. Embrace censorship, and you will inevitably embrace violence on its behalf,” he said.
Vance even gave an example of how the left sensationalizes to shut down the speech of their opposition. “It is one thing to say that pets are not, in fact being eaten, and another thing to say that anyone who disagrees is trying to murder people,” Vance noted. “Dissent, even vigorous dissent, is a great tradition of the United States. Censorship is not.”
The GOP vice presidential nominee cited the censorship that swung the 2020 election for President Joe Biden, as an MRC poll previously showed. “There was the Hunter Biden laptop story, censored by BigTech,” he wrote. “And who can forget that anyone who didn't support Kamala Harris's Ukraine policy was drenched in the blood of Ukrainian children. That last one appears to have had some effect on [Ryan] Routh—the most recent would-be assassin. The message is always the same: don't you dare express an opinion on the public affairs of your nation. The message is: shut up.”
Vance promised he would fight against that message during the 2024 campaign, “I will vigorously defend your right to speak your mind. I believe you have every right to criticize me and Donald J. Trump, even if you say terrible or untrue things about us.” Vance, in effect, argued that the remedy to bad speech is more free speech.
Indeed, Vance pleaded, “I'm asking all of us to reject censorship. Reject the idea that you can control what other people think and say. Embrace persuasion of your fellow citizens over silencing them– either through the powers of Big Tech or through moral blackmail.” This will improve the political debate, he argued.
Affirming his call to action, Vance continued, “The reason is simple. The logic of censorship leads directly to one place, for there is only one way to permanently silence a human being: put a bullet in his brain.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
