Is it OK to yell at Trump supporters?

This is part of Wedge problemsa pop-up advice column on politics, running now through the election. Submit a question here – it’s anonymous!

Dear Wedge Problems,

We recently went to a parade in our small and very blue college town, which is in a red district of a red state. The parade was full of community organizations. A number of political groups took part in the parade, including the group Free Palestine and a disturbingly large cadre of people who supported Donald Trump, the Republican Senate candidate, and the pro-life movement in general. My husband shouted, “You’re ruining this country!” a few times at the Republicans, while everyone around us fell into hushed and disturbed silence at her presence. One of the Republicans, a man in a cowboy hat, looked at him with a big smile on his face, like he was happy he was getting a reaction. And a guy on the balcony of a nearby frat house started screaming, “Trump, Trump, Trump.” Then the group walked by and everyone stopped screaming.

I was embarrassed but also kind of proud, and my husband still believes he did the right thing and would have felt worse if he hadn’t said anything. Should we shout such things at people who, in my opinion, are actually ruining this country, but who are also taking part in a community parade? Is the general expectation that such a display will be met with annoyed silence, or should one see something and say something, so to speak?

– You are ruining this country!

Dear, they ruin this,

It’s okay to have explosive feelings about American politics. It’s okay to express them openly. To some extent, it’s even okay to yell at your neighbors. It’s a free country! That said, I personally don’t like this style of yelling at Trump supporters, and it sounds like you ultimately didn’t love it either, although you felt some sense of pride.

I think the discrepancy lies in this: Yes, the Republican presidential candidate is threatening to dismantle democracy. But the citizens who expressed their support for him? They took part in a civic activity at an event intended for everyone in the community. They did so within acceptable limits. They didn’t actively threaten anyone. Maybe her felt You’re threatening your husband or the group you were with, but in reality the way you describe the scene sounds pretty banal – at least in a historical sense: no guns, no threat to physical autonomy, no swastikas or Klan -Hats. No armed guards standing by in fascist formations to curb dissent. Just people with different socio-political goals – including Free Palestine protesters – taking part in a local parade. To be honest, ruining how your husband sounds He was also one of the obnoxious ones, shouting into the crowd.

Let me be clear: your husband’s right to scream is also protected speech. And on that note, I should tell you that my own discomfort with this made me uncomfortable. Just like Trump supporters and frat boys have freedom of speech, your husband also has freedom of speech. He can scream as much as he wants!

If there’s one thing I’ve come to believe over the past few years of following the news and discourse as Slate’s policy director, it’s that liberals must recognize everyone’s right to engage in offensive speech. To be outwardly upset by a bunch of guys wearing MAGA hats is to lose perspective. (This also applies to receiving to (They’re upset about the guy who yells at the guys in MAGA hats.) And if Democrats could turn themselves into free speech advocates, the party would be in a much better position to reject the excesses of the far right It is Seeking to restrict expression and deprive others of rights and freedoms.

After all, restrictions on free expression are most often applied to marginalized and vulnerable people – even if they were put in place to protect these groups of people from hatred and intimidation. A notable example comes from the late 1980s, when, after a series of truly ugly incidents on campus, the University of Michigan instituted a hate speech code that banned speech that “stigmatized or victimized” people because of their race or gender. The code was eventually declared unconstitutional — but not before it was used by white students to accuse more than 20 black students of racist comments. Not a single white student was punished for racist remarks, even though that was the trigger for the rule.

Another truly dramatic example of a crackdown on free speech from this year is the response to the anti-war protests that have taken place on many college campuses. The students protesting against Israel’s devastating destruction of Gaza were at times over-the-top, lacking in nuance, and at times vile. Some of them resorted to active hate speech and ugly anti-Semitism. But the reaction of the supposed adults in the room — the college presidents, the lawmakers, the police — was profoundly illiberal. Over 2,000 campus demonstrators were arrested, some with great violence. Some in the media (who, by the way, rely entirely on freedom of speech) argued that students should be punished by barring them from future jobs and internships. Grown adults released personal information so that these students could be more easily harassed where they lived.

(Not to mention that just a few years earlier, many of these same adults were on their high horses lecturing college students that even hate speech was free speech – which is true – and calling them “snowflakes” for protesting the flame-throwing right – Wing pundits who came to stir up trouble at their universities in the early Trump years But I digress!)

The more we can fend off simple atrocities, the better prepared we can be to combat real threats to our freedom. We can say: Trump supporters live in our communities and have the right to support their candidate and show their support publicly. But we do not agree with the policies that restrict our rights to our bodies or our freedoms or those of others. There Is a profound difference between these things. And supporting the First Amendment rights of those we believe could ruin the country, I think, helps make room for a world where they can’t ruin the country.

One of those things about language—the reason we feel the urge to yell at people we disagree with—is that language is powerful. Perhaps your husband could think about ways he could exercise his speech proactively: by participating in the parade himself or by protesting against people in office making decisions he disagrees with. (I have to say, I like the idea of ​​him yelling at a Senate candidate much better than the idea of ​​him yelling at random civilians.) Or maybe he wants to appear as one of those counter-protesters who use satirical impersonation? (After all, clowning can be a great act of creative resistance!) If your husband decides to continue screaming at parades, that’s up to him, and honestly, I support that too. I’m glad we live in a country where he can do that. But if you’re embarrassed and upset, I understand. And if it happens again, you also have the right to tell him you’re leaving to get food and let him yell past yourself.