Trump's threats to jail people for political speech could help Kamala Harris appeal to persuadable voters
Trump's assault on free speech could be particularly important in Democrats' outreach to young men
Everyone’s busy, so here’s a TL;DR:
In recent weeks, Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to fine and imprison people for criticizing the Supreme Court.
New polling released yesterday by Take Back The Court Action Fund finds 80 percent of likely voters disagree with Trump’s threat to imprison people for criticizing the Court.
But few voters know about Trump’s comments, because the news media hasn’t given them as much attention as they deserve.
Democrats should draw attention to Trump’s threats, which are a concrete and easily-understood example of Trump’s fascist plans, and which are inconsistent with Americans’ core values, like freedom of speech.
This could be particularly useful in communicating with undecided young men, who exist in an information environment that has centered free speech as a core value and who are often difficult to persuade with other messages.
Read on for the long version.
Donald Trump is explicitly proposing fining and imprisoning people who criticize the government
Donald Trump has long expressed admiration for foreign autocrats like Viktor Orban and Kim Jong Un who have used the power of the state to stifle dissent, telegraphing his intent to follow in Orban’s footsteps in installing a repressive, undemocratic regime. As he inches closer to a return to the White House, Trump has become more explicit, and more concrete, about what that would mean for everyday Americans — and he is taking aim at America’s most precious freedoms, including freedom of speech.
At least five times in the last two months, Trump has suggested that criticizing the Supreme Court and judges should be illegal — and even threatened to fine and imprison people for doing so.
In an August rally in Montana, Trump said of people who criticize judges “What they are doing is, in my opinion, totally illegal.”
Later that month in Pennsylvania Trump said people who criticize “our judges and our justices should be punishable by very serious fines and beyond that.”
In September Trump said of critics of the Trump-appointed judge who dismissed an indictment of Trump for mishandling classified documents, “I think it should be illegal; that’s what the DOJ should look into.”
At a September rally, Trump directly threatened to imprison Americans for criticism of the Supreme Court with which he disagrees: “These people should be put in jail the way they talk about our judges and our justices.”
At a rally in North Carolina Monday night, Trump again (wrongly) said criticizing judges is illegal: “I actually think it’s illegal what people do. They call it playing the ref. … I really believe it’s illegal what they do.”
Trump’s threats to imprison people for criticizing the Supreme Court are uncommonly specific in detailing the constitutionally-protected speech he would use the power of the state to punish. But he has made many other comments that more broadly indicate a desire to lead a government campaign of censorship and punishment for speech he dislikes, from his repeated suggestion that he would deploy the military and national guard against peaceful protesters to his threats of military tribunals for people who disagree with him to his recent threats to use the military against “the enemy within,” including those who have done nothing more than criticize him.1
Although Trump is showing signs of a rapidly decaying mind, his threats to jail people for speech he dislikes should not be dismissed as the ramblings of a tired and frustrated old man who doesn’t know what he’s saying. Trump has long expressed a belief that governments should suppress speech they dislike. In 1990, Trump told Playboy magazine the Chinese government was right to turn its military against student protesters:
In the spring of 1989, the Chinese Communist Party used tanks and troops to crush a pro-democracy protest in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Most of the West, across traditional partisan lines, was aghast at the crackdown that killed at least hundreds of student activists. But one prominent American was impressed.
“When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it,” Donald J. Trump said in an interview with Playboy magazine the year after the massacre. “Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak.”
80 percent of Americans reject Donald Trump’s assault on free speech
New polling just released by the Take Back the Court Action Fund finds that when asked about Trump’s threats to imprison people for criticizing the Supreme Court, 80 percent of likely voters disagree with his comments, and only 11 percent agree.
Disagreement with Trump is high across all segments of the electorate, with at least two-thirds of Likely Voters, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Men, Women, Black people, Latinos, College graduates, non-college graduates, Harris supporters, Trump supporters, and those who are uncertain or support third party candidates all rejecting Trump’s threats to imprison people for criticizing the Supreme Court.
(I am an advisor to Take Back The Court Action Fund and was involved in this research project. The full poll memo is available here.)
Few Americans know about Trump’s threats to imprison people for political speech
The Take Back The Court Action Fund polling shows most likely voters don’t know about Trump’s threats to imprison people for speech:
In a reflection of the scant media attention Trump’s comments have been given, very few voters are aware of Trump’s threats. Only 15 percent of likely voters know Trump has said people who criticize the Court should be put in jail – less than half as many as the 33 percent who wrongly believe Trump endorsed the free speech rights of those who criticize the Court. Even among Harris supporters, more people wrongly think Trump endorsed free speech rights than know Trump threatened to jail people for criticizing the Court.
The fact that so few Americans are aware of Trump’s threat to jail people for criticizing the Supreme Court — the most explicit threat to curtail freedom of speech by a major party presidential candidate in memory — is an indication of the news media’s failure to adequately cover the threat Trump poses to the American way of life. As I have previously explained, the New York Times has never reported Trump’s threats to fine and imprison people for criticizing the Supreme Court.
It’s worth reiterating, as I noted in that piece, that Trump’s comments should be understood as threats to jail people for speech he dislikes — not some principled effort to shield judges from public pressure:
As usual, Donald Trump isn’t expressing any kind of principle here: Trump himself routinely and abusively criticizes judges he doesn’t like. When Trump threatens to jail people for criticizing judges he means people who say things he doesn’t like about judges. He isn’t proposing a blanket rule that would apply to himself and to his followers; he’s proposing an autocracy in which he does whatever he wants — including doing whatever he wants to whoever he wants.
Trump’s assault on free speech could be a potent campaign issue — particularly for young men
Democrats have made Donald Trump’s fascism a key part of their closing argument, embracing the critique Mark Milley, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, made that Trump is “fascist to the core.” It’s a powerful and important argument — but it’s more powerful when it includes concrete examples of what Trump’s fascism would mean in practice. To many voters, things like “fascism” and “autocracy” and “the erosion of democratic principles” are fuzzy concepts.
Threatening to jail people for criticizing the government is not fuzzy. Everyone understands what that means. It is a direct violation of one of the freedoms Americans hold most dear:
Trump’s comments put him at odds with the overwhelming majority of Americans who value free speech rights: In a poll for its “Free Expression in America Post-2020” report, the Knight Foundation found 92 percent of Americans say freedom of speech is “extremely” (63 percent) or “very” (28 percent) important to them – on par with voting rights, and higher than the percentage of Americans who describe freedom of religion and freedom of the press as important to them.
Putting all of this together:
Americans highly value freedom of speech
Very few Americans (15 percent) are aware of Donald Trump’s explicit threats to imprison people for criticizing the Supreme Court
When told of these threats, the overwhelming majority of likely voters (80 percent) disagree with Trump.
That’s a powerful combination: Democrats have the opportunity to give voters new information about Trump that they will dislike, and that clashes with their core values.
The new poll data shows huge majorities of likely voters in every demographic group disagree with Trump’s threats. But centering Trump’s anti-free-speech comments could be particularly valuable as Democrats attempt to address their weakness with young men, a demographic that is often difficult to reach with traditional Democratic messages and that has been the focus of a great deal of attention in recent days.
According to Reuters, the Harris campaign is considering an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast “as she works to shore up support with male voters and Black men in particular.” The New York Times’ Nate Cohn, who leads the paper’s polling operation, wrote last week that Rogan’s “fans and listeners represent one of the most important swing constituencies of the cycle. They’re also part of one of the cycle’s most important demographic trends: a possible Democratic collapse among young men.”
Rogan — like many of the other podcasters, media figures, and influencers popular with undecided young men — has made free speech advocacy a core part of his brand.
Not coincidentally, surveys suggest young men prioritize free speech particularly highly. A 2019 Knight Foundation report found that when asked to balance protecting free speech vs promoting an inclusive society, male college students were far more likely than college women to prioritize free speech:2
Nearly six in 10 college women say that promoting an inclusive society is the more important value, a view shared by only 28 percent of college men. More than seven in 10 (71 percent) college men place a higher emphasis on protecting free speech, while only 41 percent of college women express this view.
The young men who listen to Rogan and his ilk have been subjected to years of commentary and messages about the importance of free speech. And much of that commentary wrongly portrays Democrats as threats to free speech and conservatives of defenders of it. JD Vance even tried to peddle this line during his vice presidential debate with Tim Walz, presumably believing it to be a potent issue among persuadable voters like undecided young men.
Educating these potential voters about the real threat to free speech in America — Donald Trump’s explicit threats to imprison people for political speech he disagrees with — could be an important part of the Democrats’ closing message.
This month, Trump has repeatedly threatened to use the military against “the enemy from within”:
“I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within,” Trump said. He added: “We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”
By “the enemy from within” Trump has made clear he means Americans who dare speak out against him:
“I always say, we have two enemies,” Trump said, adding: “We have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within, and the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia and all these countries.”
[…]
“They’re Marxists and communists and fascists, and they’re sick,” Trump added. “We have China, we have Russia, we have all these countries. If you have a smart president, they can all be handled. The more difficult are, you know, the Pelosis, these people, they’re so sick and they’re so evil,” Trump said.
At a campaign event in California, Trump explicitly referred to Rep. Adam Schiff as an “enemy from within” — the label he applies to people he plans to deploy the military against:
At a rally in Coachella, California – a state he has virtually no chance of winning – on Saturday, Trump mocked Schiff’s physical characteristics and labelled him a bigger threat than foreign adversaries, including the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.
“He [Xi] is somebody that we can handle,” Trump said. “The worst people are the enemies from within, the sleaze bags, the guy that you’re going to elect to the Senate, shifty Adam Schiff. He’s a major low-life.”
The survey’s framing of “free speech” vs “inclusive society” strikes me as a false choice and as such not a particularly good poll question. But it is indicative of the possible appeal of a “free speech” message to young men.
Trump supporters think Trump is talking about someone else, not them. Someone they hate too.
Trump has proven time&again there’s not a loyal bone in his body.
He will throw anyone under the bus
This is how they do things in the countries Trump openly and explicitly prefers to this one. What I don’t understand is — they absolutely ARE “the ramblings of a tired, frustrated old man who doesn’t know what he’s saying.” That doesn’t mean he’s not going to do it. He’s still talking about Hannibal Lecter, for no other reason than “I meant to do that.”