The “Free Speech” Gaslighting Defense Proves the GOP’s Intent to End American Democracy

SUMMARY: This post analyzes the popular conservative defense of Trump’s DC indictment as being a violation of his free speech rights. Such claims are so clearly contrary to reality that they constitute gaslighting and indicate just how widespread conservative disdain for our democracy and rights are.

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KEYWORDS: Free speech, Gaslighting, Indictment, Trump, #GOPDystopia, Conservatives

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It’s been a week at Ye Olde Blogge! Not only did we return from vacation, but Jack Smith. We’re going to address the gaslighting that is inherent in the Republican and conservative defense of Trump.

• INDICATEMENT #2: Somewhere along the way, Trump was indicated AGAIN! Which is sweet sweet Schadenfreude to most of us, but also just sad. This is the indictment and charges that we’ve been anticipating since eight o’clock 4 November 2016.
• INDICATEMENT #2, 2: The great thing about intercontinental travel is that it gives you plenty of time to to do stuff if you plan it well. One of the things I did was download the Trump indictment and read it. You should, too.
• FREE SPEECH! The defenders of Trump have gotten their talking points straight, which is to say, they couldn’t come up with any new ones, so they just kept repeating old ones, which is the topic of this post. Haha!

The Republican defense of Trump is that he is being prosecuted for indulging his free speech rights. The defense tells you everything you need to know about Republican, conservative, MAGA, racist, evangelical, the you-name-it part of their coalition: They no longer support our democracy, Constitution, or our vision of an inclusive society.

Know the Truth: Read the Indictment

The Indictment Shows Free Speech is NOT being Prosecuted

Their free speech defense is so much gaslighting. Here’s how you know:

THE INDICTMENT: On page 2, paragraph 3, the indictment states clearly that Trump had the free speech right to make all of the claims he wanted true or false about the election. The beauty part of the indictment is that it is written in plain English. Not a word of legalese in it. Here, I’ll copy it over for you:

Th Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won. He was also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means, such as by seeking recounts and audits of the popular vote in states or filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures. Indeed, in many cases, the Defendant did pursue these methods of contesting the election results. His efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful.

Read the Trump indictment, Politico

In a report entitle, Lost, Not Stolen, eight well-known attorneys, judges, and politicians reviewed ALL of the Trump legal challenges to the 2020 election and determined that they were “woefully inadequate.” PolitiFact reports that Biden’s January 2021 remarks that Trump’s 63 court cases challenging the election were meritless was a true and accurate statement.

Trump had legal avenues to pursue any problems he perceived with the election, he took them, and he lost them all. His recounts and vote audits famously and humiliatingly added votes to Biden’s victory.

There is nothing wrong with lying about the election even if it is immoral. The government can’t regulate the amount that you lie even if you break the record, as, science fact, Trump did with an average of nine lies per day.

Lying is Protected Speech, Obstructing the Election is Criminal Behavior

THE BOTTOM LINE is that Trump is not being prosecuted or even persecuted or even held accountable for the Big Lie that election was stolen from him. He’s being prosecuted for conspiring to obstruct government proceedings, defraud the government, and to deprive Americans of their right to vote. They will be required to present evidence that will convince a jury of twelve citizens that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Gaslighting the Indictment

GASLIGHTING: Gaslighting is the abusive act of trying to convince someone that their perceptions and understanding of reality isn’t true. The gaslighter is trying to convince you that their lie is reality. Here are two examples of conservative gaslighting around Trump’s DC indictment.

The Wall Street Journal Gaslighting DoJ Prosecutors

The The Wall Street Journal op-ed board published this opinion on the indictment. See if you can spot the gaslighting:

“This potentially criminalizes many kinds of actions and statements by a President that a prosecutor deems to be false. You don’t have to be a defender of Donald Trump to worry about where this will lead. It makes any future election challenges, however valid, legally vulnerable to a partisan prosecutor.”

Another Troubling Trump Indictment

The gaslighting part is that the indictment makes it abundantly clear that Trump isn’t being indicted for speech; he’s being indicted for actions. Many punditing pundits have pundited on the various ways speech crosses the line into crime by using examples of bank robbery and murder. However, the worst issue with this op-ed is not the conflation of Trump’s free speech with his criminal behavior, it is suggesting that DoJ prosecutors are partisan. That can only happen if the policy changes championed by the Heritage Foundation to be implemented by the next Republican president. Once again, we are treated to accusation by projection.

Fox News’ Will Cain Gaslighting about Lying

Here’s Fox & Fiends Weekends host, Will Cain, gaslighting us all with this txeet:

The false equivalence drawn between Trump’s multiple attempts to criminally circumvent the outcome of the 2020 election with the suggestions made by Clinton, Kerry, and Abrams that perhaps the efforts by the GOP to suppress and nullify the votes of Democratic voters were effective and caused them to lose is first class gaslighting. The two are not equivalent.

Proving the Elements of a Crime and Gaslighting

Again, it is clear that Trump is not being prosecuted for what he said, he is being prosecuted for what he did. The indictment spells out very clearly that they have evidence sufficient to have convinced a grand jury that these four crimes took place. To convince a petite jury at trial, they’ll need to prove these elements, which they outline in the indictment:

• CRIMINAL ACT: They have to have done it and done it voluntarily and not as a reaction or reflex. However, speech can constitute a crime if it occurs in the course of purgery, a verbal threat, conspiracy, or solicitation. The indictment outlines each of these acts and the evidene used to support them.
  • A conspiracy to defraud the US by obstructing and defeating the presidential election.
  • A conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the certification of the election on 6 January 2021.
  • A conspiracy to impede our right to vote and to have that vote counted.
• CRIMINAL INTENT: They must have intended to have done what they did. The definition includes purposely, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently acting.
  • The government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump knew he had lost the election, yet entered into these conspiracies anyway.
  • The burden of proof is on the government, but they met a lower burden in convincing a grand jury to bring the charges. That’s important.
• CONCURRENCE: The intent had to occur at the same time of or before the act.
  • The indictment is very specific. It lists the dates who told Trump that he had lost the election. It even sites evidence that Trump acknowledged losing the election.
  • At each juncture, when his legal objections to the election failed, and he was told he had lost the election, he escalated the criminal schemes to remain in office.
• CAUSATION: The prosecution must demonstrate that the actions and intent of the defendant led to whatever happened that was considered a crime.
  • For each conspiracy, the indictment outlines the evidence that the actions that Trump knowingly took led to violations of the law.

The problem is that the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal, Will Cain, and everyone else who is making this free speech argument knows they are wrong. And, that is the problem. They want to deceive the American people and to help Trump win the 2024 election.

They know that if Trump or some other Republican wins the presidency, that the knives come out eight o’clock day one and the throat of our democracy is being slashed. If they know it, and they are saying it anyway, they must want it to happen, right?

They know what they are saying is wrong and is clearly contradicted in the indictment. They are trying to convince everyone who will listen that Trump is not being prosecuted, but persecuted. That is the definition of gaslighting. They are deliberately gaslighting us to enact the #GOPDystopia. It is as simple as that. And, that is why it is imperative that everyone read the indictment or listen to it being read.

Image Attribution

“The Face of the Republican Party: Willing to Do Trump’s Bidding as Attorney-General To ‘Stop the Steal,’ Jeffrey Clark” by outtacontext is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.