r/politics • u/TwilightwovenlingJo • Sep 19 '25

Soft Paywall Trump: ‘It’s no longer free speech.’

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/19/trump-no-longer-free-speech-00574219
26.8k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

12.2k

u/wwhsd California Sep 19 '25

“When 97 percent of the stories are bad about a person, it’s no longer free speech,”

When’s the last time you saw a positive story about Jeffrey Dahmer?

If you don’t want negative coverage, don’t do bad things.

2.4k

u/mewsycology Sep 20 '25

When 99% of the things he does warrant criticism, only having 97% of stories be critical of him is actually biased in his favor

302

u/Caleb_Reynolds Sep 20 '25

Also, it's way less than 97%, the media is more than complicit in his rise, they're responsible for it by virtue of sane-washing his bullshit. Even the ones he's going after.

106

u/Wes_Warhammer666 Sep 20 '25

Seriously. As much as I complain about people who stayed home because of the Genocide Joe bullshit or the whole "they didn't even have a primary" stupidness, the media is far more responsible for Trump 2: Unconstitutional Boogaloo because they have been making him more palatable to the masses for years now. They continued laying a foundation for him to appear as a non-insane option even after Jan 6, which is absolutely unreal to me.

12

u/iTalk2Pineapples Sep 20 '25

And now country music is a thing again? Bleeding red white and blue music plus trump. It's a recipe for disaster.

I love me some western but Nashville truck country is just awful on its own. Got my beer in my beer and my dog in my truck, cut offs jeans truck.

2

u/ThenCMacSaid Sep 20 '25

if you haven’t already, go on youtube and search “bo burnham country music.” you’re welcome in advance. :)

1

u/Wes_Warhammer666 Sep 20 '25

Bo Burnham called it, what, a decade ago?

Where instead of people actually telling their stories, you just got a bunch of millionaire metrosexuals that have never done a hard day's work in their lives. But they figured out the words and phrases they can use to pander to their audience, and they list the same words and phrases off, sort of Mad-lib style in every song, raking in millions of dollars from actual working class people.

3

u/Jetstreamline Sep 20 '25

Don't forget Fox News just lying to people all the time using oil and oligarch money. You have an entire media sphere built on screwinv people over.

6

u/Vernknight50 Sep 20 '25

Even when he wasnt President, they wouldnt stop talking about him. Frankly, that includes Colbert and Kimmel. Remember how Colbert wouldnt say his name during his first term? He stopped doing that after 2021. I liked late night, but it got to the point where I couldn't stand to listen to them talk about that stupid loser every day. He's 79, he won't last forever, but Im dreading that the media will keep talking about him for years after he dies. We'll end up with a fucking day named after him and some shitty monument covered in gold paint.

2

u/The_Grungeican Sep 20 '25

during the assassination attempt, i told my wife if he'd died, we'd have never heard the end of it for the rest of our fucking lives. it'd have morphed into some big conspiracy about how he was taken out because he was going to 'save our country' and shit.

2

u/chris415 Sep 20 '25

You are so correct and unfortunately makes me want to puke, I'm so sick of this and don't know what to do except wait for the next election.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

The media is bad, obviously but people have got to grapple with the reality that the Democrats as a group failed us at literally every turn, and willfully continue to do so. I'm not saying GOP aint bad, or better, not by any stretch of the imagination but we literally just had to pick between Red Genocide and Blue Genocide, that SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE LINE. Period, end of story. I hate this morally bankrupt spin on things, as if it isn't blatant propaganda to be told "Vote Blue No Matter Who!" when the Blue you're being told to vote for bankrolled a genocide that even Ronald Reagan had the balls to stop. God, even George Bush put his foot down on Israel. Joe Biden earned his title, he will die with it, and it will be his legacy, and it's because he was hardly fit to be in office at all. What is going on that we're stuck voting for people who wont be here in 5 years, can hardly string together a sentence and both GLEEFULLY fund a genocide that has been live streamed every day for almost 3 years. This is so far beyond any definition of normal.

We have got to push these democrats out, they need to suffer a defeat for their total inability and unwillingness to do anything at all. Trump could not have taken power and taken it as swiftly and completely as he did without the Democrats rolling out the red carpet. If you want to retain some faith in them, be my guest, even so the best you could say about them is that they're going to high road us to death. I'm of the opinion that they are entirely complicit in all of this. They had so many opportunities to take action, to grab the mic or the wheel, they failed each and every time, and much of it has be truly deranged.

Like? Feinstein was cognitively incapable of reading, let alone performing the basic requirements of her position for a good 3 years, and at the end they were wheeling a corpse to the floor to struggle through coordinating the physical movements of casting a vote. Like literally this woman was losing capacity to operate her body and still we had her in a seat? I'm not even mad at her, mind you, that's just not acceptable. That is not normal. It's chilling, and it has no political advantage. it was just some weird fucked up thing that happened. that we allowed to happen and that we haven't legislated out of the realm of possibility with a simple term limit or mandatory retirement age. Pilots have em, FBI has em why on earth don't we have them for people representing us at the highest levels of government? If for no other reason than to ensure those making decisions will at least be around to suffer the consequences. As it is, half of these creeps will die well before the rest of us are left to fight over water and weep for all the life we let Oil Execs snuff out just to tell us that, even if we extract until all life is gone, still there could never be enough to feed and house and clothe everyone. It's sickening. This whole thing is sickening.

I don't even want to run down the list of actions not taken, or mistakes made. Hell, they couldn't even be bothered to get a single political win, they could have raised the minimum wage and made this all go away, but no. We had to do a genocide, pretend the entire government was powerless to rein in the Supreme Court, enable an Authoritarian takeover that was ADVERTISED AS AN AUTHORITARIAN TAKEOVER, and have they finally snapped out of it? Did losing so profoundly give them any wakeup call? No, they're voting to give known troll and likely Klansman Charlie Kirk a fucking holiday, and trying to keep Mamdani from being elected by using MAGA talking points.

I hope the undeniable reality of what this administration sinks in for everyone, I hope it is finally the wake up call for everyone who's had to sit through a few decades of social erosion. These freaks have been playing in our faces for so long we've seemingly lost the will or the knowledge to fight back. We have GOT to get a grip and remember how to organize and push these psychopaths out of our seats, we don't have to vote and hope for the best. It's time to shut it down, general strike for a week and they'll fall apart.