From Washington to Bradenton, MAGA’s War on Free Speech

This week, you may have gotten a text message from the Manatee County Republican Executive Committee accusing our publication, as well as me and publisher Joe McClash personally, of being “radical leftists” and “using the exact same type of hateful, inflammatory language that incited radical transgender activists to murder Charlie Kirk in cold blood.”

The text went on to say that “when President Trump calls out the vicious rhetoric of the radical left, he’s talking about The Bradenton Times.” The REC then falsely accused me of calling Kirk “a racist, sexist, anti-semite” and said we are dancing on Kirk’s grave and would “do the same to each and every one of us.”

To be clear, I wrote that I found much of the rhetoric he used on his radio show to be anti-Semitic, misogynistic, and racially bigoted, which I stand by and provided examples of. Republican Richard Green and I debated the veracity of my opinion in a podcast this week, which provides much more context. I also wrote that it was tragic that a husband and a father lost his life to another senseless act of gun violence, and that I have empathy for his parents, his wife, and his children.

The point of the column was to decry the weaponization of Kirk’s murder, starting with the President’s irresponsible statements that assigned blame and invited violence. We write about national issues precisely because they have become so ubiquitous in everyday life and because corporate media outlets have so often bowed to pressure not to speak truth to power against a regime that is hostile toward critical coverage of its actions. If that paragraph about his show caused any of his fans who actually read the piece to feel discomfort, I apologize for any distress it may have caused in an emotional time. If you had no idea I wrote my column and were only triggered by Manatee REC Chair Mark Flanagan's text, I'll leave it to him to apologize. Furthermore, if you sent me vitriolic hate mail/social media comments, the content of which demonstrated that you did not read it (of which I received an enormous amount this week), I forgive you.

On Wednesday, the REC sent out a second text titled “REPUBLICAN SAFETY ALERT,” alleging that REC Chair Flanagan received a threat in response to the previous text. The language in that communication was vile and reprehensible, so I will not repeat it. However, I will mention that many recipients of the mass text misunderstood it to have ascribed those words to me and reached out to our publication to express what would have been warranted disappointment had that been the case. The text went on to blame us for that person’s response, even though the author clearly informs Flanagan that it is a response to the unsolicited incendiary texts he sent to residents of this community. In fact, there's nothing to suggest that the author even read my column, which wasn't linked in the text, because that would have made it more challenging to mischaracterize. I am responsible for the words I broadcast and the way people respond to them. Why wouldn’t the Republican Executive Committee hold itself to the same standard?

For some reason, Flanagan (or whoever wrote/approved the text) chose to add that “We have no interest in ‘peace and unity’ with people who want us dead,” echoing the inflammatory rhetoric that MAGA has pushed since the event.

The obvious answer is that the REC, like so many others within MAGA, is trying to tastelessly use the emotional response its followers are having to Kirk’s shooting to advance its own agenda, which includes clamping down on free speech, which is odd, as Kirk championed that above all else.

In this case, the motive is to tarnish the reputation of the publication that was most instrumental in informing the community ahead of the historic August 2024 Republican primaries, in which voters turned out in record numbers and completely flipped our Manatee County Commission out of the control of developers. Voters elected grassroots candidates who won landslide victories over well-funded opponents, while also turning away an unqualified Supervisor of Elections who was installed at the urging of those same developers. The REC wants to be able to refer back to this slander in the next election, when developers will be eager to regain control of local government.

That historic upset was not supposed to happen because in the post-Citizens United political landscape, money is always supposed to win. In Fact, Flanagan, who previously served in the Florida House, was installed as REC chair after the state party suspended the REC and then removed elected officials who weren't following the script.

Trent Wayman and Jacqueline Heissem were elected as State Committeeman and Committeewoman in that same election. They were then removed from their elected positions by the Republican Party of Florida without any sort of due process. They were replaced by Jennings Lawton Depriest, a self-described "professional propagandist" who specializes in attack campaigns (particularly incendiary texts), and Jayne Kocher, a developer darling who also sits on the Bradenton City Council. It should be noted that Wayman and his wife founded the Manatee County Republican Assembly in 2023 and backed the non-developer candidates in the primary.

Again, the reason for all of this is simple. The REC does not exist to support Republican politics at the local level. It exists to make it easier for deep-pocketed developers to get their puppets into office by parroting MAGA talking points and avoiding all discussion about the very real concerns their constituents have regarding the many negative impacts of overdevelopment. And let me tell you, they have assembled the perfect team for the job.

The title of my column was The Weaponization of Charlie Kirk, and that is exactly what we are seeing from the President of the United States down to our local Republican Party. On the day of Kirk’s shooting and before anyone had been identified as the killer, President Trump immediately blamed his political opponents and left-wing rhetoric and then said, “We just have to beat the hell out of radical left lunatics.”

I have yet to hear one member of MAGA denounce the President’s irresponsible assignment of blame or calls for violence, and based on the behavior of the REC this week, I don’t expect to. But the President of the United States called for collective punishment against the radical left (which seems to be anyone left of MAGA-lite Dems like Joe Manchin and John Fetterman in his estimation), even though one single person was responsible for Kirk's death, to the best of our knowledge. I've also not yet heard one member of MAGA decry the "right-wing extremist" who shot up a school in Colorado the very same day Kirk was killed.

Project 2025, a conservative policy agenda developed by the Heritage Foundation as a blueprint for a second Trump administration, openly seeks to turn us into an authoritarian oligarchy. It prescribes defunding universities that are not conservative enough, non-profits, and other organizations that fund or organize non-conservative opposition, and using the power of the state to dismantle independent media in favor of quasi-state media.

The author of the portion of the document related to the Federal Communications Commission was Brendan Carr. Trump appointed Carr as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission for his second term. Carr had been a commissioner of the FCC since 2017 and championed free speech, even warning Congress that it is not the role of the federal government to punish outlets like Newsmax and OAN for any role they had in promoting the “Stop the Steal” movement that led to the attempted insurrection on January 6, 2021, following Trump’s loss to Joe Biden.

However, after Jimmy Kimmel made a joke about Trump’s callous response to a reporter's question about how he was holding up after his friend’s murder, Carr blatantly threatened ABC’s FCC license if they didn’t “take action” on Kimmel. If you didn't catch it, a reporter offered his condolences on Kirk’s death and asked Trump how he had been holding up for the past day and a half since. He responded, “I think pretty good, and by the way, if you look right there, you see all the trucks, they just started the construction of the new ballroom,” before telling him all about it without ever mentioning Kirk. Kimmel joked that “he’s at the fourth stage of grief, construction,” and that it sounded like the way a four-year-old mourned a goldfish.

Carr also suggested that, because Kimmel said the shooter was MAGA, referring to the shooter’s family’s claim of being Trump supporters (there’s no evidence he was political in either direction), he was “feeding into the narrative” that it came from the right, and “we could do this the easy way or the hard way.” The irony that President Trump was also on the airwaves when he immediately claimed it was the “radical left” was unmentioned because feeding into that narrative isn’t an issue for the Trump administration.

After Carr’s threat, Sinclair and Nexstar, the nation's two largest ABC affiliate groups, announced that they would not air Jimmy Kimmel Live!, effectively forcing ABC to shut the show down. Nexstar requires FCC approval for a proposed acquisition of another local affiliate group, and Sinclair has been lobbying the Trump administration to relax the rules on media company consolidation even further. They are also both MAGA aligned, so it was no surprise that they quickly fell in line. 

It’s worth noting that in July, CBS announced the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert just days after Colbert publicly criticized Paramount for paying $16 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump over a 60 Minutes interview, describing it as a “big fat bribe” meant to secure FCC approval for parent company Paramount’s $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media. At the time, Trump predicted Kimmel would be next.

Carr told CNN this week that it might be worth taking a look at The View, which also airs on ABC and has been critical of Trump. If you’re wondering how the morning talk show handled Kimmel’s cancellation the following morning, they didn’t mention it. They also need Sinclair and Nexstar, and I wouldn't be surprised, even if the show didn't mention Trump in the future, if the affiliate groups found a way to wink at Trump by preempting the show. And that’s the point. MAGA, which proclaimed itself free speech absolutists going into this election, is only interested in free speech when it advances Trump’s agenda. For his part, Trump wants to crush opposing speech, either forcefully or through the chilling effect that using state power to punish dissenting views can have.

When Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Stephen Miller talk about the groups that fund and foment political violence, no one suspects they are referring to groups that were involved in the “Stop the Steal” movement that led to political violence at our Capitol. That would include Turning Points USA, which sent busloads of protestors to the rally, according to Kirk, who was a proponent of the Big Lie and the man on the ground for it in Arizona. It's also worth noting that study after study shows that the vast majority of political violence comes from the right. Again, the goal isn’t to end political violence; it is to crush political dissent. Trump threatened to use RICO laws this week to go after Code Pink anti-war protestors who chanted at him when he, accompanied by a massive Secret Service detail, ventured out to dinner to prove D.C. is safer since he sent troops in. Do not offend Dear Leader.

Trump’s wealth has skyrocketed in these first eight months of his second term. In fact, around two-thirds of his total financial worth was amassed over just that time and not from skyscrapers or golf courses, but from meme coins and cryptocurrency, raising serious concerns about opaque digital transactions that could be perfect vehicles for bribery. Some of it is a little out in the open, however, and Trump announced this week that he is filing a $16 million lawsuit against The New York Times for reporting on his business dealings. Do not question Dear Leader, for he must enrich himself like other leaders of authoritarian nations. 

The United Arab Emirates is eager to develop AI technology but lacks access to NVIDIA's top-of-the-line chips due to U.S. restrictions on selling them to foreign entities. This prevents our country from ceding its position in the AI arms race to China, which has access only to less powerful, earlier generations of chips from the U.S. company.

The New York Times recently reported that Sheikh Tahnoon, the Emirati royal in charge of the country’s sovereign wealth fund, invested $2 billion in Binance via digital coins from Trump/Witkoff-owned World Liberty Financial (ca-ching!). Just after, the UAE gained access to the company's best chips in an agreement with the Trump administration, brokered by, wait for it ... Steve Witkoff, who is also Trump's Middle East envoy. Conflict of interest much?

On Wednesday, Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist John Lyons asked Trump about the wealth he has amassed since returning to office, and was bluntly threatened by the President.

"In my opinion, you are hurting Australia very much right now," Trump told Lyons. "And they want to get along with me. You know, your leader is coming to see me very soon. I'm gonna tell him about you. You set a very bad tone." When Lyons continued, Trump pointed his finger in his face and said, "Quiet."

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been seeking a meeting with Trump for months after talks between them were cancelled at the last minute when Trump left the G20 summit in June earlier than expected to deal with the bombing of Iran. Will Trump threaten to impose higher tariffs if Lyons is allowed to keep his job as the network’s U.S. editor?

After Attorney General Pam Bondi threatened to target and go after anyone who uses hate speech, a CBS reporter asked Trump about it. "We'll probably go after people like you, because you treat me so unfairly,” the same man who had just called for violence on his political enemies told him. “It's hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe I'll come after ABC. ABC paid me $16 million recently for a form of hate speech, right? Your company paid me $16 million for a form of hate speech, so maybe they'll have to go after you.”

Trump was referring to an interview with Harris that was edited for the TV version in a way that he thought made her answer look better, while the full answer was available in online versions. That is the exact same thing Fox News did regarding the answer Trump gave as to whether he would release the Epstein files if elected, but I don't recall him complaining.  Given how prominent Trump's relationship with the world's most notorious sex trafficker and pedophile keeps being revealed to have been, even without a full release of what is known, I think it is pretty clear why Kash Patel was installed and what his marching orders are. 

If you report unfavorably on the President, you might get sued. If you need approval for a merger or another project involving the outlet’s parent company, you'd better ensure that you fire anyone who does anything other than lavish praise on the President. Regulations on media consolidation will continue to be relaxed, and right-wing companies like Sinclair and Nexstar will own all of the affiliates, while massive conglomerates continue to merge until only Trump allies and/or those willing to play ball control all major American media outlets. There will be one opinion and one truth, all dictated by Dear Leader.

Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, who was a mentor to Kirk, had this to say this week:

“You hope that Charlie Kirk's death won't be used ... to construct a society that was the opposite of the one he worked to build ... You hope that a year from now, the turmoil we're seeing in the aftermath of his murder isn’t used to bring hate speech laws to this country, and trust me, if it is, if that does happen, there is never a more justified moment for civil disobedience in this country and there never will be. Because if they can tell you what to say, they're telling you what to think, then there's nothing they can't do to you, because they don't consider you human. They don't believe you have a soul. A human being, with a soul, a free man, has a right to say what he believes, not to hurt other people, but to express his views.”

There are many things I disagree with Tucker Carlson on, but on this, I agree wholeheartedly, and so would Charlie Kirk. And apparently a lot of MAGA agrees ... or at least they used to. 

Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of our weekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Click here for his bio. Mitch is also the author of three novels and a short story collection available here. He can be reached at editor@thebradentontimes.com.