The demand by Democrats for Big Tech to censor right-wing conspiracies on social media is a betrayal of the ideals liberals claim to stand for, says Thomas Frank. The real question is why so many people, particularly in rural America, believe such outlandish lies. Thomas joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news

Transcript

Paul Jay

Hi, I'm Paul Jay. Welcome to theAnalysis.news. Please don't forget at the top of the website, there's a donate button. If you're watching on YouTube, there's a subscribe button.

In a recent piece in The Guardian, Thomas Frank writes:

"In liberal circles these days there is a palpable horror of the uncurated world, of thought spaces flourishing outside the consensus, of unauthorized voices blabbing freely in some arena where there is no moderator to whom someone might be turned in. The remedy for bad speech, we now believe, is not more speech, as per Justice Brandeis’s famous formula, but an “extremism expert” shushing the world.

What an enormous task that shushing will be! American political culture is and always has been a matter of myth and idealism and selective memory. Selling, not studying, is our peculiar national talent. Hollywood, not historians, is who writes our sacred national epics. There were liars-for-hire in this country long before Roger Stone came along. Our politics has been a bath in bullshit since forever. People pitching the dumbest of ideas prosper fantastically in this country if their ideas happen to be what the ruling class would prefer to believe."

That's Thomas laughing at his own lines (in the background).

Thomas Frank

I haven't thought about it for a long time.

Paul Jay

I love when I'm interviewing someone who can really write and all I have to do is read their piece as an introduction. It makes my life so much easier. Anyway, here we go.

"Debunking' was how the literary left used to respond to America’s Niagara of nonsense. Criticism, analysis, mockery, and protest: these were our weapons. We were rational-minded skeptics, and we had a grand old time deflating creationists, faith healers, puffed-up militarists, and corporate liars of every description. Censorship and blacklisting were, with important exceptions, the weapons of the puritanical right: those were their means of lashing out against rap music or suggestive plays or left-wingers who were gainfully employed. Or these days, left-wingers like us who aren't so gainfully employed."

Now joining us to discuss the liberal demand for more censorship is Thomas Frank. He is a political analyst, historian and journalist. He co-founded and edited The Baffler magazine. He's written several books, including What's the Matter with Kansas? Listen, Liberal and his most recent is The People, No: A Brief History of Anti Populism. Thanks for joining me, Thomas.

Thomas Fran

Paul Jay. It is great to be here. Here among the canceled.

Paul Jay

So, you accuse this demand for, particularly the big social media companies, the demand that's come from corporate Democrats and from a lot of the newspapers and much of the liberal political elite to essentially censor Trump's stuff on the social media?

Thomas Frank

Yeah.

Paul Jay

And you're saying this is essentially a betrayal of the liberal ideals liberals claim to stand for. So why is this a betrayal?

Thomas Frank

Well,