The Death of Free Speech

... America has become despotic and authoritarian. If you could transport fascists from a century ago to this age, they would assume that fascism had carried the day in the great ideological wars of the 20th century. Everything in American life is now controlled by a partnership between capital and the state....

The great example of this is playing out in the Twitter drama. Since the explosion of post-Marx culturalism began at the turn of the century, the great and the good have been lecturing us about the glories of democracy. America stopped being a republic and became a democracy, our democracy...

Twitter was where the cool kids could make sport of the rubes in flyover country. Of course, the audience could also go on the platform and have an equal chance to speak truth to power. Twitter quickly became digital democracy!...

That was the problem; it did not take too long before the beautiful people noticed that the rubes in flyover country were good at mocking their betters. The Great Awokening was a response to the great digital awakening. Suddenly the Dirt People could see that their betters among the Cloud People were callow simpletons....

The people in charge do not want democracy, and this is made clear in their behavior. Their revealed preference is for authoritarian oligarchy exercised through the managerial class....

The war to prevent Musk from opening Twitter back up will put an end to the democracy business. Even the dullest civic nationalist can plainly see that the people in charge have zero interest in letting the public decide much of anything. Their revealed preference is for authoritarian control....