How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

Emotional exhaustion and “firehose” politics

• Many describe feeling worn down by the volume and pace of Trump-related crises, explicitly linking it to the “firehose of falsehood” strategy meant to exhaust opposition.
• Some argue people must pace themselves (“marathon, not sprint”) while still staying engaged; others flirt with fatalism (“point of no return”) and see institutional capture as largely complete.

What counts as civic duty? Voting, protests, and beyond

• Strong disagreement over whether voting is a civic duty or merely a right; some see non‑voters as failing their compatriots, others reject “choosing between two awful options.”
• Proposed reforms include ranked or negative voting, compulsory turnout with blank ballots, and local election and voting-system activism.
• Suggestions for action: support local media, call representatives regularly, join or build organizations, run for office, divest from Tesla, attend (peaceful) protests. Several users argue protests are over‑romanticized compared to slow coalition‑building.

Authoritarian drift, fascism analogies, and the 3rd‑term question

• Many see current actions—deporting student protestors, sending people to Salvadoran prisons without due process, ICE targeting labor and Gaza activists—as textbook authoritarian escalation, with explicit comparisons to historical fascist regimes.
• Intense debate over Trump’s floated third‑term ambitions: some say the 22nd Amendment is unambiguous; others note how the 14th was effectively sidestepped and imagine VP or Speaker-of-the-House workarounds or court reinterpretations.
• Some insist institutions (SCOTUS, states, midterms) will still hold; others point to presidential immunity rulings and past failures to prosecute earlier abuses as evidence of a culture of impunity.

First Amendment: legal attacks vs normal politics

• The thread highlights: executive orders attacking specific media outlets and law firms, use of Signal and auto-deleting messages to evade FOIA, pressure on government-funded broadcasters, and threats against judges and independent agencies.
• Supporters call media lawsuits and agency reshaping legitimate politics or responses to bias; critics call it mafia-style extortion and a systemic attack on press freedom and checks and balances.
• Several note earlier erosions (PATRIOT Act, Obama-era drone strikes, Bush-era torture) and argue failure to punish those has enabled today’s bolder violations.

Free speech culture wars and “cancel culture”

• Some blame years of left-leaning “cancel culture,” campus firings, and social-media bans for eroding free-speech norms and letting the right pose as speech defenders.
• Others insist there’s a categorical difference between private moderation/social consequences and state coercion (deportations, criminal investigations, funding threats).
• Long subthreads debate “free speech absolutism,” the paradox of tolerance, book removals, and whether current left/liberal institutions still credibly defend speech on all sides.

Structural pessimism and party failure

• Multiple comments fault the Democratic Party for suppressing internal progressives, relying on anti-Trump outrage instead of a positive program, and losing key working-class and union constituencies.
• Broader critiques target the US presidential system, the two-party duopoly, gerrymandering, and money in politics as making sustained democratic accountability—and defense of First Amendment norms—fragile.