Commentary
Watching his beloved country fall into decline, Donald Trump in 2015 decided to step into the arena.
Drawing upon his business acumen, he correctly identified America’s problems at home and abroad, and set out to fix them. He called his project Make America Great Again—and he did just that.
He unleashed American energy and reduced unemployment rates to historically low levels. He secured the southern border and made a good start—despite tremendous opposition—at a badly needed border wall. He appointed hundreds of federal judges, including three Supreme Court justices who played a key role in overturning Roe v. Wade.
Overseas he refused to enter into pointless wars, and instead targeted America’s chief enemy, communist China, with tariffs and other measures. He strong-armed allies into paying more for their defense, kept Russia in check, destroyed the Islamic State, and brokered the Abraham Accords between Israel and a number of Arab states.
These accomplishments are all the more impressive because they were accomplished in the heat of battle. From the moment Trump announced he was running, there were those who were illegally plotting against him. At the outset, the 45th president of the United States could not have known—none of us did—about the vastness of the Washington cabal that saw him as a threat to their continued rule and were intent upon destroying him and his movement.
It wasn’t just lies spread by the Hillary Clinton campaign about secret Russian communications with Trump Tower. Nor was it just FBI Director James Comey and a few rogue actors at the FBI lying to the FISA court and wiretapping the incoming president. It wasn’t even just the Mueller investigation perpetuating the “Russian Collusion” hoax for the first two-and-a-half years of his term. It was much, much more, as we now know.
Trump fought back, of course. He always fights back—this is one of his great virtues—even when facing impossible odds. He called out the FBI for the attempt to take down a duly elected president. He ripped fake news, partisan witch hunts, and censorship on social media. He called for draining the Washington swamp. But for a long time, neither he nor we could see how the pieces fit together into a larger whole.
During his term in office, Barack Obama had weaponized the surveillance state against his political enemies. And it is this surveillance state, in league with Democrats and RINOs, that set out to destroy the threat that Trump presented to their continued rule. This effort involved not only the FBI and FISA court to spy on a sitting president, but our intelligence agencies as well. The CIA, the director of National Intelligence, the National Security Division of the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Security Agency, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) were all involved in the effort to remove Trump from office and, having failed at that, to ensure that he did not win a second term.
Thanks to Elon Musk and his commitment to free speech, we now see how Twitter—and social media in general—was weaponized by the surveillance state against the MAGA movement in general and Trump in particular. The ultimate goal of the surveillance state, however, is even more ambitious: It is, to use a phrase from the DHS, to control the “cognitive infrastructure” of the United States. Or, as Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry put it in plain English, to control our very thoughts.
It is easy to see that the effort by the surveillance state, through its social media “subsidiaries,” to ensure that only approved political narratives can be seen and shared on social media is a mortal danger to free speech. And since democracy itself depends on the First Amendment to function, it is clear that the Republic itself is at grave risk. Indeed, if the surveillance state is not stopped, it will inevitably seek to impose a censorship regime not all that different from communist China’s.
Trump sees it as well, which is why he just gave one of the most important speeches of his political life.
In it, he laid out exactly how he intends to defeat these attacks on the First Amendment, which are attacks on American democracy itself. He calls it his “Free Speech Policy Initiative” (summarized here).
It is a tribute to Trump’s success that the party has moved decisively in his direction on MAGA policies. Every single one of the Republican candidates who are positioning themselves for 2024 is promising to carry on the successes of the 45th president. Whether they admit it or not, his prospective opponents are all vying to be the next Great MAGA King.
But as Musk’s revelations make clear, we are now in a battle over whether America will continue to be a free country. The Democrats claimed during the last election that democracy itself was in danger. They should know, since they are linked to the surveillance state threatening it.
As he was in 2016, Trump is once again ahead of the game. He understands the threat and will fight with every fiber of his being to dismantle the surveillance state and preserve the First Amendment.
The surveillance state also understands this; that’s why they continue targeting him.
The politicians running against the former president—and they are all politicians whether you like them or not—understand the enormous power wielded by the surveillance state.
Would any of them be willing to confront it in the same way that Trump has now pledged to do, especially knowing that, if they did, they would be subjected to the same kind of vicious, ongoing attacks in the media and in the courts that Trump has endured for the past six years?
Or would they instead quietly compromise with the surveillance state, maintaining the pretense of the democratic rule even as the reality is further eroded away?
The answer is: I don’t know.
But I do know this: Democracy really is on the ballot in 2024.
And there is only one man we can absolutely count on to defend the Republic from its enemies.
You know who I am talking about.
Trump will finish the job he started in 2016. Or, like President John F. Kennedy, who was planning to dissolve the CIA when it allegedly assassinated him, he will die trying.
