> there's a lot of people who seem to operate on the presumption that in the long term, their side is going to have complete control of the government indefinitely

... and who are willing to alter the rules to make sure that, once they get power, it will be easier for them to continue to have complete control indefinitely. And why? Because they are certain of the rightness of their ideas, and therefore if the people vote against them, it can only be because the people have been lead astray by lies and propaganda.

Such people deserve, at a minimum, our profound suspicion.

William S. Burroughs argued that people who know that they're right, and impose their beliefs on others, should be killed on sight. Because they're infected with the "right virus". Just like we kill rabid animals.

But then, he was probably joking. And fscking with his readers' perspectives.

> there's a lot of people who seem to operate on the presumption that in the long term, their side is going to have complete control of the government indefinitely

I think you are confusing outcome for mechanism. The idea is that once their side wins, they'll clamp down so hard on wrong-think that the other side effective ceases to exist. It will be like elections under a dictator: sure there's another party, but if you vote for them you get a free trip to the re-education camp and get erased from all databases.

You can like Trump or not, but he's probably one of the people in power who'd least care for this sort of censorship. He clearly revels in public debate, perhaps even to an unhealthy degree. It may not be Lincoln-Douglas stuff, but that's how democracy is supposed to work.

Without descending too deeply into American domestic politics, I'm skeptical of that given his stated desire to expand the scope of slander and libel laws.

It's really easy to end up in a "speech for me, not for thee" kind of scenario, especially when that reveling is generally more polemical than forensic.

I understand why public figures have no recourse to slander and lies, but it doesn’t make it fair. It’s only just in that protecting the powerless against armies of lawyers from the powerful, is the best we can do. But allowing damaging lies to go unpunished is certainly a black eye for justice.

Similar to how for years in the UK you had super injunctions (less so now) that could be requested but they weren't cheap.

That is not factually correct. He revokes press credentials of journalists who criticize him. He encourages people to attack journalists, and some of his supporters have already done so.

I advise caution against spreading false information so blithely.

Im just curious what journalists you're talking about. He tried to revoke Jim Acosta's for being very uncordial (to put it lightly), and he revoked Bloombergs after they said they would only investigate him and not Democrats. Are there others? If he revoked the credentials of everyone who criticized him then there would be hardly any left...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-white-house-has-...?

This might be a better description of what happened, without the paywall and a bit less histrionics.

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/white-house-press-passes...

He certainly does not revoke press credentials of journalists just for criticizing him. He did revoke the credentials of a single journalist who was apparently incapable of waiting his turn and repeatedly interrupted the press conference.

I'd advise you to heed your own advice about spreading false information.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-white-house-has-...?

Do not make this a partisan issue.

How is it different to Obama's presidency?

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/obama-whose-admin...

It's different because Trump is not their guy..

I'm guessing he said very little when Maxine Waters, among several other politicians made several direct and open statements such as, "you confront them restaurants, gas stations, shopping places, and even their homes".

Further, there is a huge push by news agencies to inhibit the flow and regain control of information. The recent Gayle King interview with Mark Zuckerburg is a great example of this. She was absolutely beside herself that Zuck wouldn't censor certain ads (unlike some other platforms), implying several times that people were just too stupid to evaluate and assess for themselves.. It was pretty ironic to hear Zuck say several times that people should be able to make up their own minds to a journo. But that's where we're at.

I think Trump is garbage, but the truth is that anyone spouting such nonsense as above about Trump really care little about truth, they are about agenda, which is fine if they were just honest about it. They associate Trump with this pie in the sky extreme view of some nefarious journalism censorship happenings. Yeh no.. They Got their credentials revoked, a privilege... Try that shit in a country with an actual dictator and you end up diced in pieces and taken out the back and put in a dumpster or they put you in jail and they let you out in 20 years or so.

Again, I encourage you from making this a partisan issue. Previous presidents like Bush would never encourage attacks against his opponents or against members of the media. Do you not remember when Trump said 2nd Amendment people should take care of Hillary?

When has Bush encouraged attacks against his opponents and the media? This really isn't a partisan issue.

Indeed. From my observation it's the left that are looking intolerant and scary, attempting to force opinions in their preferred direction and delegitimise opposing views.

Citation needed. When he sees something he disagrees with he flatly calls it fake and moves on. That's not debate.

But that is where it ends with him. Debate doesn't have to be healthy to still be debate, but he isn't stopping the people from saying the things against him.

When you start trying to create laws or compel companies to shut down speech you disagree with or don't like, either through the guise of hate speech laws or "stopping disinformation", that is the scenario we are scared about that is rampant for abuse.

> he isn't stopping the people from saying the things against him.

A) yes, he does. refer to the various people he has paid to stop talking about him through NDAs and catch & kill.

b) yes, he does. refer to the trump campaign's refusal to credential bloomberg most recently.

and various would-if-he-could:

c) refer to trump saying SNL is an attack on his safety, eg.

d) refer to trump referring to any non-fox media as 'the enemy of the people'

e) refer to trump recommending treason charges against NYT.

f) refer to trump recommending treason charges for people who refused to applaud at the state of the union

and on and on and on. there are endless examples of trump requesting legal action against various people "saying things" about him that he doesn't like. those people are only protected by the constitution. i have no interest in creating laws to compel companies to shut down speech i disagree with. i am a free speech absolutist. but a) he does stop people from saying things via civil legal action and b) he would stop people from saying things via criminal action if it were legal to do so.

He revels in attention towards himself when he says outlandish or controversial stuff, and calls dissenting viewpoints "Fake News". Not the same thing.

It seems like most people who support that kind of censorship are indeed short-sighted of how it can be used against them in the future, but there are also bad actors that just want to destabilize everything because it fits in with their goal making conditions bad enough that it will be easier to "smash the X" (patriarchy, capitalism, social classes, etc). Anything that upsets what they perceive as the "established order" is good, because it gives a better foothold to advance their other agendas.