{"id":167702,"date":"2021-02-24T09:39:28","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T14:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=167702"},"modified":"2021-02-24T09:59:25","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T14:59:25","slug":"shapiro-the-authoritarian-left-is-on-the-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/shapiro-the-authoritarian-left-is-on-the-march\/","title":{"rendered":"SHAPIRO: The Authoritarian Left Is On The March"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fshapiro-the-authoritarian-left-is-on-the-march%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=167702&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-451874300.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>This week, Democratic Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Jerry McNerny, D-N.J., sent out a series of letters to America\u2019s largest communications corporations: AT&#038;T, Alphabet Inc., Cox Communications, Dish Network, Comcast, Apple, Amazon and others. Their letters demanded answers from these corporations on one simple topic: Why would these platforms continue to allow the dissemination of \u201cmisinformation\u201d from conservative outlets?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur country\u2019s public discourse is plagued by misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and lies,\u201d the House Democrats wrote. \u201cThese phenomena undergird the radicalization of seditious individuals who committed acts of insurrection on January 6th, and it contributes to a growing distrust of public health measures necessary to crush the pandemic. \u2026 Are you planning to continue carrying Fox News, Newsmax, and OANN?\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-slot-rendered-dynamic=\"true\">The overt move by members of the government to cudgel private corporations into silencing unpopular viewpoints was clearly violative of First Amendment principles. The Constitution clearly provides that Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech or the press; Democrats have now hit upon a convenient workaround where they bully private actors into doing their censorious bidding.<\/p>\n<p>This clever gambit is rooted in the conflation between \u201cdisinformation\u201d and \u201cmisinformation\u201d promulgated by the establishment media since 2016. After the 2016 election, the media went berserk with the theory that Hillary Clinton had lost the election thanks only to Russian interference. \u201cRussian disinformation\u201d \u2014 meaning false information promulgated by a foreign government for the purpose of interfering in domestic politics \u2014 had twisted the election. Now even disinformation promulgated on American soil is protected by the First Amendment. But it soon became clear that the authoritarian left wasn\u2019t interested merely in active disinformation springing from foreign sources. It was troubled by\u00a0<em>any narrative or information that contradicted its point of view\u00a0<\/em>. This information could quickly and easily be labeled \u201cmisinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And \u201cmisinformation,\u201d it said, had to be policed.<\/p>\n<p data-slot-rendered-dynamic=\"true\">Why, precisely, wouldn\u2019t the answer to misinformation be factual rebuttal? Because, the authoritarian left argued, misinformation led to \u201cincitement.\u201d Now, there is a legal standard for \u201cincitement\u201d \u2014 and it\u2019s a high bar to reach. But the authoritarian left has broadened out the meaning of incitement to include any verbiage that elicits strong emotions \u2026 so long as conservatives are responsible for such verbiage. Thus, it\u2019s possible incitement to call people by their biological pronouns but perfectly innocent fun to wink and nod at widespread looting and rioting.<\/p>\n<p data-slot-rendered-dynamic=\"true\">The answer to \u201cmisinformation\u201d and \u201cincitement,\u201d however, can\u2019t lie within government. So Democrats have turned toward hijacking the private instruments of informational dissemination, all in the name of reestablishing an informational monopoly the left lost with the death of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, and with a monopoly that collapsed completely with the rise of the open internet.<\/p>\n<p>And corporations are going along with all of this. This week, Amazon banned a book on transgender people, \u201cWhen Harry Became Sally,\u201d presumably because it took a non-woke line on the subject. Coca-Cola is now apparently indoctrinating its employees into the cult of Robin DiAngelo \u201canti-racism.\u201d Facebook and Twitter and Google are all preparing new measures aimed at cracking down on \u201cmisinformation\u201d \u2014 opaque guidelines and non-rigorous standards that will surely cut in favor of the same establishment media now pushing censorship, and the Democrats they support.<\/p>\n<p data-slot-rendered-dynamic=\"true\">The establishment media are fond of saying that we\u2019re experiencing a crisis of authoritarianism in America; they point to the criminal acts of Jan. 6 and suggest that right-wing authoritarianism threatens democracy itself. The far greater threat to democracy, however, lies with an authoritarian left that is now ascendant in virtually every powerful institution in America.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/its-time-to-uncancel-americans\">More from Ben Shapiro: It\u2019s Time To Uncancel Americans<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><em>The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><span class=\"s1\"><em>member<\/em><\/span><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week, Democratic Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Jerry McNerny, D-N.J., sent out a series of letters to America\u2019s largest communications corporations: AT&amp;T, Alphabet Inc., Cox Communications, Dish Network, Comcast, &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2274106,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-451874300.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"SHAPIRO: The Authoritarian Left Is On The March","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-451874300.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"SHAPIRO: The Authoritarian Left Is On The March","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2274106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}