Intimidating Americans Will Not Work

The president of the United States is demanding that American citizens use only the words that please him, and he is punishing those who refuse to do so. This is the essence of his attacks against the Associated Press, which he has barred from the White House for referring to the Gulf of Mexico as “the Gulf of Mexico.” He is now demanding that the news agency acquiesce to his renaming of the body of water. “We’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it’s the Gulf of America,” Donald Trump said to reporters earlier this week.

This is not how it works in the United States of America. In our nation, free speech is a God-given right. It is not something that Trump, Elon Musk, or anyone else can grant or take away. Americans are born with the right to speak freely, and to publish freely. In America, as I have written previously, we are free to criticize the government, which is accountable to the people, not the other way around.

Americans for years have confused the power that techno-authoritarians exercise over the social-media platforms they operate with the responsibilities of government. This confusion in many ways presaged our present moment, and the question of who is in fact running the country—the richest man in the world or the man who was elected president. In the past, some of those who have railed against censorship on privately held platforms, such as Facebook and X, may have had good cultural reasons to gripe, but they didn’t really have a classical free-speech argument. (Mark Zuckerberg, who complained about the White House apparently pressuring him to edit and moderate his platform in accordance with its wishes, did have a reasonable free-speech complaint.)

Trump may wish to run the United States like a business, but there are key differences between what a government can do and what a private company can do. A private-business owner can kick people out of his establishment for saying things he doesn’t like. The government cannot. And while it may be Trump’s prerogative to grant access to the Oval Office only to people who will say the words he wishes for them to say, no American, no one who believes in principles established by the First Amendment, should tolerate Trump’s exceedingly un-American reaction to our most sacred freedom.

Call the Gulf of Mexico whatever you want. Call it the Gulf of America, or the Gulf of Steve Martin, or the Gulf of Flying Spaghetti Monsters. This isn’t about a single body of water, or even politicization of language or the naming and renaming of landmarks. It is about basic American principles. The president is floating a great big test balloon, looking to see just how much of an encroachment on freedom Americans will tolerate. Some Americans, like the leaders of the news site Axios, have preemptively acquiesced. (The explanation they offered—that it would use “the Gulf of America” because “our audience is mostly U.S.-based”—was conspicuously illogical and painfully embarrassing for its cowardice.) Many more Americans still remember what their freedoms mean, and what it means to fight for them.

Memorize these words: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Donald Trump may believe he has the authority to do whatever he wishes, the legislative and judiciary branches be damned. But he still has to answer to the people. Freedom of speech makes this country great. It keeps power in check. It brings truth to light. Trump has tried repeatedly to classify Americans who happen to work as journalists as “enemies” of the people. But they are the people. And it’s none of the government’s business what any of its people choose to say.