Auditioning For “The View”
By Mitch Berg
Conservatives – and humans with any sense of history or moral conscience – have been blasting CBS’s Margaret Brennan for blaming the Holocause on “free speech”.
Seems pretty indefensible.
Now, some do indeed try to defend Brennan. One such argument points to the fact that the Nazis did co-opt free speech. In an editorial in 1928, Joseph Göbbels, Hitler’s social media director, wrote, “We are an anti-parliamentarian party that for good reasons rejects the Weimar constitution and its republican institutions . . . We enter the Reichstag to arm ourselves with democracy’s weapons. If democracy is foolish enough to give us free railway passes and salaries, that is its problem. It does not concern us. Any way of bringing about the revolution is fine by us.”
So yes. The Nazis co-opted free speech. to gain power. .
They also co-opted many of the other institutions of German society – the Lutheran and Catholic churches, the school system, academia (Hitler’s inner circle was disproportionately artists, writers and intelledtuals, not thugs), the bureaucracy (in effect a fourth branch of government), and eventually the military, as well the quirks of the structure of German government under the Bismarck constitution (which the Weimar constitution didn’t change much, other than replacing the Kaiser with an elected President).
So it’s not a very good defense of Brennan.
So let’s make sure we’re clear on *why* this exchange happened.
- VP Vance loudly and rightly castigated Europe for curtailing free speech – arresting people for social media posts, confiscating computers, etc.
- Brennan tried to press Rubio, “You’re standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to commit a genocide”. Brennan was saying because the Weimar version of “free speech” was one of the *many* factors the Nazis (as you cite with Göbbels) were able to use to gain power, the Germans and Brits are *right* to curtail free speech [1].
In some ways, it’s the “why was your skirt too short?” argument.
In others, it’s much more sinister than that.
Remember – Big Left’s house PR firms have been strongly hinting that free speech is just too complicated and dangerous for us proles. Harris and Walz *ran on* curtailing free speech, including reinforcing the (very Göbbelsian) alliance between the DOJ and Big Tech. Governor Walz, who is in many ways the exposed “id” of today’s center-left, established a database to track “badthink” in Minnesota.
The system of which Brennan is a privileged part isn’t even being coy about it. They think free speech (for the rabble) is a bad thing, and they act on that belief.
Rubio pointed out, absolutely correctly, that it wasn’t peoples’ right to speak freely, but *a government with too much power*, that committed genocide. No need for an apology – it’s true.
Brennan is literally everything that’s wrong with today’s news media. I will be standing on Fifth Avenue pelting her with (rhetorical) rocks and garbage as security escorts her out of Black Rock when she’s eventually laid off, on her way to her inevitable job at NPR or “The View”.
[1 Well, *some* peoples’ free speech, anyway.
February 20th, 2025 at 7:06 am
Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals #4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
“So Ms Brennen, I’ve watched your news program and observed the seemly endless advertisements for various, and might I add dubious, drugs. Are you not exploiting free speech to schill for Big Pharma? Is that right to do that? Isn’t it about time someone in government looked into this?”
February 20th, 2025 at 8:11 am
Agreed that the National Socialists did use the relative permissiveness of the Weimar Republik to gain power, and another key part of that was that (a) Versailles conditioned Germans to believe they’d been betrayed by elites and had a need to tolerate a certain degree of “batshit crazy”, and (b) too many Germans who weren’t actually willing to call the Nazis on their “batshit crazy” ideas.
Fast forward to our President trying to impose an even more onerous conditions on Ukraine than Versailles imposed on Germany, and spouting off rhetoric that comes straight from the Kremlin bovine scat factory. I voted for Trump, but it appears that he’s either getting dementia, or is blinded by rage at something like his second impeachment. We are in dangerous territory where we are risking getting another Soviet Union out of this deal.
February 20th, 2025 at 10:38 am
Let’s say Brennan is onto something. Maybe we DO need a system to restrain speech to ensure that Bad Ideas don’t get promulgated and therefore Bad Things don’t get instigated. Maybe the government could appoint a group of Watchers to monitor social media, email, television and radio, with power to shut down rabble-rousers and fine or imprison repeat offenders.
Suppose Trump were to say, “On reflection, I think Ms. Brennan and CBS News had a point. There are times when misinformation and disinformation can be detrimental to the peace and security of the nation. I intend to appoint a Board of Watchers to regulate speech. My Watchers will represent a broad spectrum of society: Mormons, Amish, Southern Baptist, Federalist Society, and of course, Elon Musk for his expertise with the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. I am confident Democrats will join me in welcoming the Watchers as they begin to shape the boundaries of permissible political discourse before the next election.”
Unconstitutional? Of course. But that’s just the excuse. Democrats would be all in favor if they got to pick their own Watchers, they simply don’t want THOSE people to be the Watchers. And now we are full circle back to Juvenal asking, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
I am constantly amazed at the brilliance of the Founders in structuring a government which avoided millennia of mistakes. And constantly appalled at the idiocy of Liberals who don’t understand why removing just one more brick from the foundation puts the entire structure in jeopardy.
February 20th, 2025 at 12:08 pm
You might find it interesting – or not – that Harris Faulkner’s show, which looks to me to be a direct timeslot competitor to the View, now has better ratings.
https://redstate.com/rusty-weiss/2025/02/20/harris-faulkner-beats-the-view-in-ratings-now-shes-taunting-them-all-they-do-is-talk-talk-talk-n2185789
If you don’t really care, you can take pride that Ms Faulkner was one of us for a while.
February 21st, 2025 at 6:50 am
The ladies on The View were upset because “nobody voted for Elon” and because “he hadn’t been confirmed” so he has no authority to cut spending or lay off staff.
What if the President asked each department head to conduct an internal audit, using a specific team of auditors deploying the latest AI assisted forensic accounting software to detect fraud and waste. What if the auditors gave a report to the department head and the department head did the spending cuts and lay offs. Then would everything be alright? Then would liberals be happy?
If not, then “lack of authority” is just an excuse to protect fraud and waste. Why do liberals want to do that? What’s in it for them?
February 21st, 2025 at 6:37 pm
Your analysis of Brennan and her defenders isn’t wrong – but I think you give Brennan herself too much credit.
Here is what you’ll find if you peek under the hood of Brennan’s thinking.
“The American right likes free speech and uses it to win elections.”
“The American right is basically nazis.”
“Therefore the real nazis must have used free speech too.”