Taibbi And Greenwald On How The Regime Media Branded ‘Free Speech’ As ‘Far-Right’

NOTE: This article may include commentary reflecting the author’s position.

Independent journalist Matt Taibbi appeared on Glenn Greenwald’s Rumble show “System Update” on Tuesday and the conversation turned to a fascinating discussion about the way that free speech has been branded a “right-wing” idea.

Greenwald brings up a March 16 article in the New York Times titled, “How Trump’s Allies Are Winning The War Over Disinformation.”

Greenwald explains that the framing of the story puts free speech and right-wing Trump supporters on one side and the alleged liberals on the other.

Taibbi says that the framing itself is frustrating and pointed out that there were medical professionals censored during COVID because their views didn’t support the prevailing narrative of other “experts” who turned out to be wrong.

Greenwald said that he thinks that the rebrand was brought about in 2016 after the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom and the election of President Trump that followed just a few months later. Authoritarian Leftists were terrified that people could find information online and think for themselves.

Greenwald added that the “disinformation” framework is being funded by a bunch of liberal activists like Pierre Omidyar, Bill Gates, George Soros, and Reid Hoffman with intelligence agencies behind it.

Going back to the NYTimes article, Greenwald says that the Leftists are insisting that the reason that there was an infringement on speech was because the government simply wanted to keep people “safe” from alleged pro-Trump lies online. He adds that the entire “disinformation” effort is to “protect” America from right wing views.

Taibbi says that there was a switch in the intel community from counter terrorism to what he calls “counter populism” and most of the issues that they are painting with the Trump brush don’t have anything to do with Trump. He cites Dr. Jay Battacharya’s criticism of the response to COVID was suppressed on social media.

“We have the First Amendment to prevent the government from creating a hegemonic opinion that no one can challenge,” Taibbi said.

Greenwald responded by saying that the framework is now being used for multiple issues with the same pro-Trump/anti-Trump dynamic and it’s happening in other countries as well.

Greenwald cited a quote by the erstwhile head of Biden’s “Ministry of Truth”, Nina Jankowicz (aka Scary Poppins), who lamented that the U.S. government is now hampered in censoring the speech of Americans on social media platforms.

(Thank you, Twitter Files!)

Taibbi says that it’s astounding that there is a generation of people who think it’s fine to suppress speech that they don’t like.

Greenwald interrupts and says that it’s basically because of TDS and Leftists are “monomaniacally obsessed” with Donald Trump.

“This is the thing that’s so important to understand — every last issue in our political discourse is viewed through one prism and one prism only: is it pro-Trump or anti-Trump,” he said.

“They see free speech as a major obstacle to stop Trump,” added Greenwald.

Taibbi elaborated on that thought by mentioning another piece by one of the co-authors of the Times article that advocated a whole different approach to reporting … because Trump.

He says that the same article appears to assume that the reader will come to the “correct” conclusion that since social media is a central element of Trump’s success, there need to be tight reigns on social media.

Greenwald then notes the bizarre cognitive dissonance of Leftists supporting the Biden DOJ trying to jail Trump to prevent him from becoming President again because he might weaponize the DOJ against his political enemies.

Near the end of the clip, Greenwald points out a portion of the NYTimes article that states that the suppression of the New York Post‘s story on Hunter Biden’s Laptop From Hell is a prime example of why government censorship is so important.

Taibbi says that the government is treating people like children and the Regime Media is going along with it.

Greenwald notes that there is overlap with an appetite for censorship in the Establishment wings of both parties, and the left/right dichotomy probably isn’t as useful as it once was — it’s Establishment vs. anti-Establishment. The Regime Media have been convinced that they are now a part of the Establishment.

It’s pretty clear that the authoritarians censorship advocates on both sides of the aisle are equally absurd and nuts and it’s delicious to see them being verbally b-slapped by liberals like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi.