There is, after all, only one way to guarantee that the government never has the power to censor you, and that’s not giving them the power to censor anyone. You might want laws to silence bigots, but once you give the government the right to silence anyone, it could someday use those same laws to silence you.
If you don’t understand what I mean, just think about what happened after Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” comment. Did that turn people away from Trump? Far from it. In fact, it prompted countless Trump supporters to use the word in their names or handles on Twitter. It prompted the Trump campaign to sell “deplorable” T-shirts. It prompted Trump to use the comments for his own campaign’s fundraising, and to bring his supporters closer to him, as well as to present himself as the foil who would never demean them in that way. (“While my opponent slanders you as deplorable and irredeemable, I call you hardworking American patriots who love your country and want a better future for all of our people,” Trump said during a rally in Iowa shortly afterwards.)
In other words? Rather than question their choice of alliance because of Clinton’s insult, Trump’s supporters embraced it — clearly seeing it as evidence that the people who disagree with them, in fact, don’t just disagree with them; they hate them, too. They think that they’re stupid. Nobody wants to listen to anyone who just got done calling them dumb, and all Lemon did here was further solidify the narrative that “liberal media elites” like him think Trump supporters are fools, which, in turn, only makes them hate Trump’s opposition more.
A video of CNN news anchor Don Lemon laughing hysterically as his guests mocked Donald Trump’s supporters went viral this week — and it couldn’t have been a more effective campaign ad for the president.
Make no mistake: Clips like this embolden Trump’s supporters. They don’t see this sort of mockery and start to question their beliefs — rather, it just strengthens their view that it is them (and Trump) against the world. It makes them more loyal to the president, not less.
Trump can point directly to this segment as evidence whenever he makes one of his favorite claims: that his opponents don’t respect his supporters or rural Americans.
In fact, this clip actually also provides ammunition for another one of Trump’s favorite claims: the idea that CNN is “Fake News.” Looking at this clip — and seeing a CNN news anchor laughing at Trump supporters this way — makes it easier for Trump to tell his supporters that all the news coming from CNN is tainted with this same bias, and therefore not reliable. It makes it more likely that they will blindly believe Trump, who hasn’t insulted them, and less likely that they will believe that anyone affiliated with CNN could ever have a legitimate criticism.