Even After Trump's Victory, Why I Still Fight for Freedom of Speech

LA County for Trump is not hiding their love for our
President. Sure, our votes didn’t swing the election in his favor last year,
but his electoral win has turned into political, moral, and cultural victories
which even conservative refugees in blue states can relish and celebrate.

We have not rested since Election 2016, when the real
estate/media mogul took the political establishment by storm. This past
weekend, we celebrated President Trump and his successes in Palisades Park,
right along the Santa Monica coastline. “The People’s Republic of Santa Monica”
is one of the most elite yet entrenched hubs for the anti-Trump resistance in
California. FYI, Santa Monica used to be reliably red, including such
conservative firebrands as Robert “B-1 Bob” Dornan as Congressman.

Yet even along the deep Blue coast (where
students married the ocean in creepy yet benign ceremonies), there are
Trump supporters, and they gathered to us right there along the coastline of a
beautiful, breeze, if slightly warm weekend afternoon.

What makes us want to come out for freedom of speech,
especially when we could have taken a nice swim or walk along the Santa Monica
pier? Why do LA County Trump supporters make their case for the President in a
deep blue area? Isn’t freedom of speech well-protected already?

Sure, we love free speech, but we want to celebrate and
exercise our right to speak our minds without fear, and engage others who do
not agree with us to share their thoughts too. After all, the restoration of
this sacred right is one of the reasons I love our President. He freed this
country, the citizenry from the PC chokehold which had shamed and silenced
conservatives for nearly 30 years. This deafening incapacity to punch back
hamstrung Republican activists from making gains. Why? Much of the time
Republican lawmakers, whether in Washington or among the 50 states, were obsessed
with how the media would portray them. They didn’t know how to play the media,
and even individual Americans and conservative interest groups played cautious
and limited their own First Amendment capacities.

This kabuki theater of fawning moderation from the
grassroots and the conservative political class came to end with street fighter
Donald Trump. He thrived on the media attention, for better or for worse. The
media had to cover him, especially because they wanted to smear him, and he in
turn thrived off the negative coverage as it prospered his profile.

For the longest time, Americans had gotten tired, frustrated
with a lying, fawning media telling them what to think and which facts to pay
attention to. Shouldn’t the media simply report the facts, paying attention to the
evidence rather their bias and ideological bent? Americans were particularly
furious with the political correctness cult that suppressed sensitive yet
necessary information, like the murder of American citizens by illegal aliens
or the destructive nature of trangenderism. Beyond that, 95 million Americans
out of work were not just tired, but irritated by the chronic reports of a
strong economy, when they couldn’t scratch two dimes together or find a stable,
full-time job.

The culture wars agitated Americans even more. Do I want
transgender bathrooms in a local restaurant, when everyone with two eyes in
their head knows that there are two genders, two parents—and very likely two
terms for Trump? If they were so angry, why weren’t Americans speaking out?
Shame and the fear of widespread smears. The Democratic Party, with Barack
Obama at the helm, worked hard to impose this cultural Marxist sentiment of
silencing dissent—without force of law or violence. Shame is an effective tool
for demolishing one’s opponents. Alinksy understood the power of condemnation
all too well. With this psychological warfare in the hands of our leftist
opponents, freedom of speech posed no threat to their powerful, tyrannical
ambitions. Furthermore, they could rely on the complicit media, a corrupted
education system, and the funding of liberal corporations to induce average
Americans to shut up and say nothing.

But illegal immigration carried a cost which exceeds the
potential shame that follows from speaking out. More importantly, Candidate
Trump was not afraid to speak his mind, as vulgar as it may have sounded to
others. He touched the latent anger of Middle America, and he gave them a voice
which they had been shamed into not using. He understood the Art of the Deal,
but recognized that negotiation with the totalitarian left would end in failure.
Playing along had already failed. Being nice simply does not work. Trump
understood that, and he knew that all of us had known that for a long time, but
didn’t want to say it. What his successful campaign has done for this country
is incalculable. But one tangible feature is the resurgence of free speech as
an essential aspect for our culture.

For the greater part of my life, I never gave a second
thought to my First Amendment rights, whether they would be in danger or not. After
seeing bakers losing their businesses and civil servants losing their liberties
over their First Amendment rights, I finally how endangered the First Amendment
was becoming. Donald Trump’s victory showed that the assault on our freedom of
speech would not end in inevitable tyranny.

But the battle has only begun. The Democratic caucus in
Washington attempted to gut the First Amendment. They still want to cut the
funding from free speech exercise, i.e. repeal the Citizens United decision with a constitutional amendment.  Since those efforts have failed, now the Left
resorts to violence. From the Black Lives Matter domestic terrorists to the
Antifa thugs shutting down free speech rallies—to the attempted massacre of
House Republicans on a baseball diamond in Alexandria, Virginia—the Left and their
Democratic Party puppets are determined to stop freedom of speech from
flourishing in the heart of every American.

And that is why I will continue to stump for Trump and
attend free speech rallies in the most liberal sections of Los Angeles County.