Authoritarianism does not always only silence the critic. Sometimes it teaches everyone else to lower their voice.
Tuesday, President Donald Trump threatened to sue the Center for American Progress for five billion dollars over research it published about his deployment of the National Guard to American cities.
The report found that violent crime was already falling before the troops arrived, and that the deployments had no measurable effect on violent crime trends. I have mentioned those findings before, because armed National Guard troops have now been patrolling Washington for more than a year.
Trump says the research is false and defamatory. His personal attorney demanded that CAP retract it or face the five-billion-dollar lawsuit. CAP refused.
This is a private legal threat from the president, not a Justice Department prosecution. Trump also publicly named some of CAP’s corporate donors while discussing possible action against the organization.
A research organization studied one of the president’s policies and published findings that contradicted his claims. The president responded by threatening the group with a five-billion-dollar lawsuit and calling attention to the companies that fund it.
CAP says it will keep publishing its research.
Authoritarianism does not always only silence the critic.
Sometimes it teaches everyone else to lower their voice.
Notes To My Future Self 