Hypocrisy First

Trump, 'free speech' and autocracy

How envious must Donald Trump be as he watches his over-size flat screen TV in the West Wing and sees the depiction of real power and regime glorification beamed from Tianenmen square in Beijing ? How, he must be thinking, could his so-called ‘Liberation Day’ announcement about the imposition of global tariffs compare with the performative might of Xi Jinping’s Victory Day parade ? And what about the armoured train which brought North Korea’s Kim Jong-un to the celebrations ? Trump’s bullet-proof SUV must seem puny in comparison.

To many people in the West, the spectacle of the three autocrats - Xi, Kim and Putin - in fraternal embrace as thousands of goose-stepping troops pay fealty, is a reminder that democracy has deadly enemies backed by tanks and ICBMs. But what is the view from Washington ? Will putting more National Guards onto the streets of Chicago satisfy the need for a show of force ? Can a Nobel Peace Prize or a fifth head on Mount Rushmore elevate Trump to the ranks of the immortals ?

What about finding an ‘enemy’ which can be fought without the need to send US soldiers into battle ? How about ‘free speech’ ? Trump’s resounding campaign slogan in the presidential election was America First, a conscious echo of the proto-fascist platform espoused in the 1930s by Charles Lindbergh. But if supporters thought that this meant the US would focus on its own problems and stay out of those of other nations, how wrong they have been.

Trump’s ‘genius’ was to realize that the route to victory lay not in the ‘economy stupid’ but in stoking the ‘culture wars’ to paint his opponents as ‘woke’ leftists who posed a threat to American liberties. It was this message which turned the Republicans from a mainstream political party into a cult in thrall to its supreme leader. Of course, it’s a message suffused with double standards. As Republican grandees such as JD Vance attack Europe for curtailing free speech, his small-town supporters in many states are culling the shelves of public libraries of books they find threatening - ironically, including Orwell’s 1984.

Trump’s point man in the UK, Nigel Farage, will tell Republicans what they want to hear about the illiberality of online regulation when he appears before the House judiciary committee. As ‘evidence’, he’ll raise the case of Lucy Connolly, who was jailed after last summer’s riots for an incendiary post on X calling for hostels housing asylum seekers to be set on fire. Connolly describes herself as Starmer’s ‘political prisoner’. Perhaps her gaze and that of all who think and act like her should turn eastwards to Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang, where they know all about political prisoners. And perhaps Trump should think about rebranding America First as Hypocrisy First.