Free Speech For People’s Statement on the 2024 Election

Our democracy is value saving.

This election cycle, our democracy has been staggered by blow after blow. We can not faux in any other case; to take action could be to simply accept that this hamstrung system is the one with which we should dwell. It isn’t and we don’t settle for that it’s. We are going to preserve preventing for our democracy.

So we face the information. We all know Donald Trump, twice impeached and liable for inciting an rebel when he misplaced the 2020 election, was declared the President-Elect following the 2024 election. We all know that he’s disqualified to carry this workplace beneath the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause of the U.S. Structure, however was permitted to stay on the poll due to a corrupt and damaged Supreme Courtroom. We all know that he infused his marketing campaign with violent, racist rhetoric that to at the very least a few of his supporters is a function, not a bug.

We all know that Trump and Harris raised a mixed $2.7 billion, with greater than $1 billion coming from tremendous PACs and different sources exterior of their official campaigns. We all know that for all federal elections, exterior expenditures exceeded $4.5 billion, shattering earlier information set in 2020. We additionally know that almost all of that spending got here from tremendous PACs.

We all know that, within the shadow of Trump’s repeated threats towards a free press, billionaire-owned newspapers refused to endorse a candidate over the opposition of workers. We all know that social media platforms are flooded with disinformation and that our entry to the phrases of others—whether or not they be pals, journalists, or anybody else—is topic to the whims of algorithms designed to maximise revenue over reality.

We all know that Trump—at the moment going through a number of federal legal costs for interfering with the 2020 election and stealing categorised paperwork—is unlikely to be prosecuted whereas he holds workplace, and that the Supreme Courtroom has granted him immunity for crimes arising from his “official acts.” We all know that he was in violation of the emoluments clause when he took workplace in 2017 and is poised to stay in violation of the emoluments clause when he takes workplace once more in 2025.

We all know that our judicial department is mired in corruption and partisan scandals which have been uncovered not by official investigation however by journalists—all with out consequence. We all know that the Supreme Courtroom and decrease courts throughout the nation proceed to render selections that erode voting rights and anti-corruption legal guidelines.

Huge cash in politics doesn’t and can’t coexist with political equality. Free speech shouldn’t be a zero-sum recreation. However within the fingers of oligarchs and the politicians and judges who depend on them, that’s what it has grow to be. The place cash has been given the standing of speech and firms the standing of individuals, the place our mechanisms of sharing speech and information is formed by revenue maximization, then some voices can and do silence others. That is harmful on its face, and it’s significantly harmful the place, as we see now in our nation, highly effective voices are focusing on marginalized and weak communities. They achieve this as a way to foment racist, violent assist for his or her causes, to intimidate those that oppose them, and to make it appear as if silence within the face of oppression is the most secure course.

It isn’t. It might be the most secure course for billionaire newspaper house owners and profit-maximizing social media firms, however it’s not the most secure course for the folks of this nation or for america. We all know this. We all know that our democracy is not going to be saved by accepting its billionaire/company seize as fait accompli. And we all know that there are elected officers, judges, grassroots organizers, journalists, attorneys, establishments, and extraordinary folks all throughout the nation who stay dedicated to our democracy—together with these voters in Maine who overwhelmingly voted to abolish tremendous PACs in elections of their state.

With this data—the great and the dangerous—Free Speech For Folks stays dedicated to its ongoing struggle to guard our democracy and our elections for folks and never firms and to elevate up the promise of political equality for all. We are going to proceed to demand accountability from our judges and our elected officers, together with the President. We are going to keep on our work to problem massive cash in politics and unchecked company energy, and we are going to rejoice each step that strikes us nearer to an equitable, simply, democratic society.

Different Assets:

Click on right here to study extra and to hitch Free Speech For Folks on this struggle to reclaim our democracy for all.

“The boundaries of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of these whom they oppress.”

– Frederick Douglass

“We who imagine in freedom can not relaxation till it comes.”

– Ella Baker