It's a Free Country...or Is It?

We're Not What We Used to Be

“It’s a free county.”

How many times have you said it? Or heard it said? Children say it almost as soon as they learn to talk.

It’s an idea that is so woven into the fabric of our lives that it is for many of us—despite all the wrongs of this country’s past—perhaps the simplest possible distillation of what America is about or, at least, should be about.

At least it was.

But is it true any longer? Is it true if the government can tell a university what to teach and how? Or if that government uses its power to snatch legal residents off the streets for expressing a view it does not like? Or if leaders in Washington threaten law firms that if they do not embrace clients with certain beliefs they will be forced out of business? Or if promoting simple ideas like the merits of diversity or the importance of equity and inclusion can be banned within the government or within entities that receive funds from the government? When pictures of Americans of color or women are banned from government websites? When words are considered so dangerous that they become banned in research proposals or any documents that require the approval of a government official?

Is it a free country when the government can incarcerate people without due process? Is it a free country when judges who express legal opinions that do not conform to the beliefs of the president or those around him are threatened with impeachment? Is it a free country when public servants have their security clearances stripped away simply because they have been critical of the administration in the past? Is it a free country when doing your duty leads to political investigations? Systematic harassment on line and in public forums?

Is it a free country when the opportunities afforded every citizen are not equal? When your zip code is the most likely determinant of where you go to college or what your future income will be? When the rich are given every advantage and the poor have their rights stripped away from them—the right to vote, the ability to make their voices heard in the billionaire controlled media? When those billionaire media owners start denying journalists and commentators the right to express their views as they always have within their pages?

The Trump Administration has only been in office two months. In constructive terms they have achieved very little. They have not advanced any sort of meaningful legislative agenda. Their program to "cut costs” in the government has reportedly ended up costing the U.S. at least $500 billion…so far. It has also eviscerated government services, largely in service of an agenda to quash any ideas that run contrary to their views, ideas about so-called “wokeness” (compassion) and “DEI” (fairness). It has attacked our allies, weakened global institutions, undermined the global trading system, damaged the U.S. economy and U.S. competitiveness and strengthened our enemies, particularly Russia and China. Millions will suffer and die because of their defunding of U.S. foreign aid programs. More will follow because of their reckless anti-science policies when it comes to health and the enviroment.

This administration that boasted “free speech absolutists” in its top ranks has achieved very little except to deeply and dangerously chill free speech. Elon Musk has banned voices on the website he controls that are critical of the government and, as we have seen recently, of other authoritarian regimes he supports like the one in Turkey. No entity that does business with the U.S. government today would ever speak of promoting underserved communities or fighting climate change or developing experimental vaccines.

The message has gone out to law firms and universities and public schools and hospitals and military contractors and journalists—don’t use forbidden words, don’t promote forbidden ideas. The country is already being hit by a dramatic drop in foreign visitors and students because they know that if an offending phrase about the president or his policies are found on their cellphone or in their past somewhere they could be prohibited entry into the U.S. or later thrown out of the country or perhaps incarcerated. This will do huge damage to our economy and to our society. Businesses already understand they will have a much harder time attracting top talent from around the world. Rural communities that often depend on foreign doctors will find that their healthcare options are undermined in yet another potentially deadly way. (Good luck attracting attendance at the upcoming World Cup and Olympics scheduled for the U.S.)

But would you come to America today? A country in which having a suspicious tattoo on your arm could have you put in shackles and flown to a hellhole prison in a foreign country from which you may never speak to a lawyer or, in fact, be freed or escape alive?

And that is to say nothing of the other freedoms those in the MAGA movement have already ended or restricted—from a woman’s right to receive the reproductive healthcare she may need or desire to an individuals right to make fundamental life choices about their gender or what kind of history or science books they can share with their students or place in their libraries.

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was created to be a national arts center. But it now exists for the glorification of our Dear Leader and his friends. Concerts or plays or other performances promoting diversity or the full range of life choices made by Americans are now banned, verboten, shut down. The same has happened in other national arts and cultural organizations. The National Endowment of the Arts is now limiting its work to promoting “patriotic” themes especially those associated with the upcoming 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The agency that promotes libraries and museums has been taken over by DOGE and effectively shut down. So to is one devoted to the promotion of the dangerous idea of peace and international understanding.

In my next column, tomorrow, I will talk about the root causes and reasons for this dark turn of events in the U.S. But let me conclude by saying that the situation is certain to get worse. More freedoms are in the MAGA crosshairs (like the freedom for people to marry whomever they love). And the response of major institutions like universities and law firms to the intimidation campaign of the administration has been so weak and compliant that it will only encourage the White House Thought Police. (Columbia University and Paul Weiss Rifkind think that their “cleverly” worded responses to the government will allow them to avoid penalties and, in Columbia’s case, receive blocked funds. I hope, of course, they have cracked the code and continue as they once were. But, I fear they are not properly assessing how their concessions will be received by the MAGA enforcers of this world or the predisposition of some in this administration not to honor deals and to always seek more and more from those who show them weakness.)

“It’s a free country” has a kind of poignant ring to it these days, a throwback to a bygone area.

Because here’s the cold hard reality. It’s not really a free country any more and it’s getting less and less free with every passing day.