AMAC Exclusive – By Seamus Brennan

While the left’s aversion to freedom of speech in the United States has always been far from a secret, few could have predicted the firestorm of left-wing fury resulting from Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter and subsequent moves to make the platform more transparent and open to political viewpoints outside of the liberal echo chamber. Progressives’ meltdown over the loss of their Twitter “safe space” (particularly following Musk’s release of “The Twitter Files” showcasing just how much Twitter staff conspired with Democrat operatives to silence conservatives) reveals the unsettling extent to which the American left remains hostile to free speech—and the lengths to which they will go to silence, censor, and blacklist dissenting voices.

Given the doomsday rhetoric from the left following Musk’s acquisition of Twitter earlier this fall, some might be inclined to think that human civilization is now literally on the brink of collapse. “It’s like the gates of hell opened on this site tonight,” Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz wrote in the wake of Musk’s takeover. Journalism professor Jeff Jarvis decried the change in leadership as an “emergency,” stating that the platform had been “taken over by the evil Sith lord.” “The sun is dark,” he claimed in a later tweet. Charlie Warzel, a columnist for The Atlantic, took it a step further: “There is, both inside and outside the company, an apocalyptic feel to the ordeal,” he wrote. Forbes writer Dave Vetter insisted Musk’s takeover would amount to the platform being “swamped by Nazis, Pepes and other invertebrates.”

Unsurprisingly, this streak of left-wing outrage has only escalated following Musk’s reinstatement of previously banned Twitter accounts—most notably Donald Trump’s. The New York Times bemoaned the prospect of Trump’s return to the platform as “dangerous.” California Congressman and longtime Trump critic Adam Schiff said Trump’s reinstatement was a “terrible mistake”—not accounting for the fact that Trump was first removed from the platform as a sitting, duly-elected president. Jelani Cobb of The New Yorker said Trump’s return to Twitter made remaining on the platform “completely untenable”—further demonstrating the left’s intolerance for dissenting political voices on Twitter and elsewhere.

Hollywood figures didn’t hesitate to chime in, either. Actress Mia Farrow encouraged her followers to “get blood pressure pills.” Actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner attacked Musk for letting “Lies and Disinformation continue to poison the American bloodstream.” Actress and musician Bette Midler mourned what she described as “a tragic day for America.” Actor John Cusack condemned Musk for supporting “fascism.” The list goes on.

In response to Musk’s announcement that he would grant “amnesty” to previously suspended accounts, the Associated Press deemed that the decision would “spur a rise in harassment, hate speech and misinformation.” Left-wing activist Alejandra Caraballo similarly proposed that “Apple and Google need to seriously start exploring booting Twitter off the app store”—which would make the app (which many Americans see as the world’s primary digital public square) virtually inaccessible. According to a Musk tweet, Apple was for a time considering removing the site from their App Store, but has since backed down.

The left-wing outrage has intensified even more this week following Musk’s release of the first batch of “the Twitter Files,” internal company documents showing that mid-level Twitter staff colluded with Biden campaign operatives (and quite possibly career bureaucrats at the FBI) to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story. One NBC News opinion piece called Musk’s move “manipulative” and suggested that the Twitter Files “endanger our democracy and our lives.” Other users on Twitter slammed journalist Matt Taibbi for publishing a Twitter thread detailing the contents of the files. Ben Collins of NBC jealously tweeted mocking Musk for, in his words, “throwing it all away to do PR work for the richest person in the world,” while writer Wajahat Ali accused Taibbi of “selling [his] soul for the richest white nationalist on Earth.”

Though most Americans have rightly come to expect the left’s inevitable temper tantrums every time their grip on the political discourse is called into question, progressives’ sheer outrage surrounding Musk’s takeover of Twitter raises significant red flags that should be of grave concern to every American. The left’s unbridled moral panic in response to Musk’s promotion of a foundational American value—namely, the right of every American citizen to speak freely and to challenge the political and cultural status quo—is not only bizarre but also deeply disconcerting.

Shortly after Musk took control of Twitter this fall, he tweeted that, as he seeks to elevate the voices of everyday American citizens, the “media elite will try everything to stop that from happening.” In the weeks since he published that tweet, his prediction has come to pass. As the left continues to wage war on one of the foremost bedrocks of democratic self-government in the United States, the American people would be wise to take note—and to remember what side is truly concerned with “protecting democracy” and the various institutions that underpin it.

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