Right-Wing Media Wary of Florida Proposal

Ron DeSantis recently distanced himself from a proposal in Florida to make bloggers who discuss certain officials register with the state and make regular reports on what they are writing about.

That distancing sounds far less plausible today, as even right-wing outlets are pushing back against another anti-free speech proposal:

The ad that led to the Sullivan case. (Image by Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain due to publication date and lack of copyright notice.)

The legislation, drafted at Mr. DeSantis’s urging as he inches toward a presidential bid, takes aim at several protections in state and federal law, including the decades-old Supreme Court precedent that makes it difficult for public figures to win libel lawsuits. The proposals are packaged in two bills moving through the Republican-controlled Legislature.

While public opposition has largely come from left-leaning and nonpartisan free-speech groups, forces traditionally aligned with Mr. DeSantis have in recent weeks begun raising alarm. They are warning that the governor and his G.O.P. allies did not take into account how the bills would affect right-wing reporters and commentators, not just the mainstream outlets that have become punching bags for Republican politicians.

“The sword cuts both ways,” Trey Radel, a radio talk show host and former Republican congressman, said late last month as he railed against the legislation on his evening drive-time show.

Good on them for seeing the danger. In issuing this warning, conservative media show at least the modicum of sense I wondered about DeSantis and his supporters lacking:

There is no thought like, If we pass a law like that, it might come back to bite us, which would have at least crossed the minds of even the worst politicians from a generation ago.

That's what I find most worrisome of all, for whether or not Brodeur and his ilk in the Republican party are actively working to establish a dictatorship, what they are doing now will certainly help those who have no intention of honoring the results of the next election -- that prospect which, however poorly, has kept American politicians somewhat in line for a long time.

That said, while it might be premature to fear for a dictatorship, the real danger is that -- as these very public discussions show -- intimidating the media will make it harder to discuss the bad policies or mistakes of our government officials.

I don't see how a politician who would deprive himself of such important feedback can be trusted to know or care about his country.

-- CAV