Thomas Frank and Paul Jay discuss censorship by monopolies and changes in the political landscape of Kansas, on theAnalysis.news

Transcript

Paul Jay

Hi, I'm Paul Jay, welcome to theAnalysis.news, please don't forget the donate button at the top of the webpage.

Thomas Frank wrote in a recent essay published in Le Monde Diplomatique ,  "This essay is not a brief for free speech absolutism, or an effort to rationalize conspiracy theory or an attack on higher learning. It's about the future of the Democratic Party, the future of the left, and here is the suggestion I mean to make: the form of liberalism I have described here is inherently despicable. A democratic society is naturally going to gag when it's told again and again in countless ways, both the subtle and gross, that our great national problem is our failure to heed the authority of traditional elites."

Thomas ends the essay with this, "The mob attack on the Capitol frightened us all. But for Democrats to choose censorship (via the monopolists of Silicon Valley) as the solution to the problem is a shocking breach of faith. There are many words one might describe a party that, over the last 30 years, has shown itself contemptuous of working-class grievances while protective of the authority of the respected...but 'liberal' isn't one of them."

That was Thomas's piece in the Le Monde Diplomatique. This is interesting timing to discuss these issues, YouTube just took down an editorial I was about to publish that called for Trump to be charged with sedition and treason, and also called for an investigation of Mitch McConnell's role in the events of January 26th.

In the piece, I ran footage of Trump's speech meant to incite the crowd on January 6th. I ran this footage to show what Trump's role was that day. That seemed to be enough for YouTube's algorithm to delete the story.

Of course I appealed. But what the hell business is it of YouTube to use an algorithm to censor me? That is, assuming it is a mistaken algorithm. I got a message saying they were taking down the videos that stated the elections were won by widespread fraud, which of course, my piece didn't say at all. Perhaps YouTube didn't like my focus on the coup that Trump and Flynn tried to organize, more likely, automatic censorship.

But one day perhaps, there'll be other keywords to trigger a takedown. I have still no answer to my appeal to YouTube. Perhaps they have an algorithm that hears the appeals.

Now, joining us is Thomas Frank. He is a political analyst, historian, and journalist. He co-founded and edited The Baffler magazine, and has written several books, most notably 'What's the Matter with Kansas?' in 2004, 'Listen, Liberal' in 2016. His most recent book is 'The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism', and you'll be able to find an interview I did with Thomas about his book, if you look around theAnalysis.

Thanks for joining us, Thomas.

Thomas Frank

Paul, it's my pleasure as always. I like that quote that you gave, his famous last words. It's literally the last words of the story, and in some ways, it's my epitaph as a political writer. I'm sorry, I'm in a very morbid mood these days for reason-

Paul Jay

How can one not be, but elaborate?

Thomas Frank

It's just I've been spending a lot of time thinking about and going over the transformation of liberalism in the US, since the rise of Trump, and going back and looking at the Obama days and stuff like that, and how we've lost sight of so many of the things that we used t...