The chill on speech during COVID-19 hurt the country
Get The Gavel
A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr.
Enter Email
Sign Up
If you weren't all in with masks and isolation, you were a spreader of a killer virus. I wore masks, but I also bought a propane heater and served Thanksgiving dinner in my backyard. After attending a Christmas Eve gathering, I found out the next day that someone there had tested positive afterward. That news upset some family members who came to my house on Christmas. They trusted the science of complete isolation — a science that is disputed in the new book 'In Covid's Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us,' by Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee.
Advertisement
With COVID-19, the big chill on speech came from the left. But putting a chill on speech is a bipartisan exercise and not limited to talk about a pandemic. Three decades ago, the late journalist and social commentator Nat Hentoff tracked it in a book titled 'Free Speech for Me — But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other.' Today, the censorship continues.
For example, from the left: If you say 'All Lives Matter' instead of 'Black Lives Matter,' you are racist. If you have doubts about the participation of transgender women in sports, you are transphobic. If you question the amount of money sent to Ukraine to aid it in its battle against Russia, you are a Putin puppet. If you think Kamala Harris would have benefitted from a running mate who did not trim the truth like Tim Walz did, you are making a false equivalence with a president who rarely speaks the truth.
Advertisement
From the right: If you don't think every undocumented immigrant should be immediately deported, you are welcoming rapists and murderers into the county. If you think college students should be able to peacefully protest in favor of a Palestinian state, or, if you express doubt about the extent of Israel's military response after the Oct. 6, 2023 attack on their country — you are antisemitic. If you think it's wrong to blame a plane crash on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts before an investigation into it is complete, you are a left-wing nut.
When there is no middle ground, there is no civil conversation. And without civil conversation, there is what we have now, an angry country filled with snarling citizens. On one side, there are Democrats who refuse
It takes leadership to stake out rational middle ground and make the case for it to the public. I have no proof, only hope, that voters are hungry for it. While President Trump achieved victory by claiming the extreme right, there is some evidence the pendulum is ready to swing toward the reasonable center. That is illustrated by the shift in public opinion on the issue of transgender women in sports. I would like to think that at some point, public opinion will also shift against those who took down the images of women and non-white service members from Department of Defense websites.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, as we mark this fifth anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, imagine if Trump had handled the pandemic differently. Imagine if he had not gone to war with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former infectious disease chief, but worked quietly behind the scenes to encourage free and open discussion about the best way to address the pandemic. What if he had not predicted the virus would 'miraculously' disappear or suggested that household disinfectant was the antidote?
On COVID-19, Trump failed the leadership test. But as Scharfenberg wrote, 'The trouble was that too many liberals lumped these absurdities together with legitimate skepticism.' As president, Joe Biden also failed to challenge the prevailing thinking.
Elected officials like Baker did what they could to get it right. If it turned out to be wrong, it was because of an unhealthy campaign to squelch healthy debate. There's a lesson in that — if only we could learn from it.
Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
21 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
US and China are holding trade talks in London after Trump-Xi phone call
LONDON (AP) — High-level delegations from the United States and China are meeting in London on Monday to try and shore up a fragile truce in a trade dispute that has roiled the global economy, A Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier He Lifeng is due to meet U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer at an undisclosed location in the city. The talks are due to last at least a day. They follow negotiations in Geneva last month that brought a temporary respite in the trade war. The two countries announced May 12 they had agreed to a 90-day suspension of most of the 100%-plus tariffs they had imposed on each other in an escalating trade war that had sparked fears of recession. Since then, the U.S. and China have exchanged angry words over advanced semiconductors that power artificial intelligence, 'rare earths' that are vital to carmakers and other industries, and visas for Chinese students at American universities. President Donald Trump spoke at length with Chinese leader Xi Jinping by phone last Thursday in an attempt to put relations back on track. Trump announced on social media the next day that trade talks would be held on Monday in London. 'We are a nation that champions free trade and have always been clear that a trade war is in nobody's interests, so we welcome these talks,' the British government said in a statement.
Boston Globe
41 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
A simple statement that can help cops win people's trust
Advertisement As researchers, we've spent more than 500 hours observing, interviewing, and riding along with police officers. We've found that this disconnect is common. Officers feel they're being respectful and polite, while community members — especially people of color, unhoused people, and members of other groups that are disproportionately stopped by or otherwise involved with law enforcement — interpret the interaction as a Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up But Advertisement Police officers start their conversations with a trust deficit, and strategies that usually put people at ease in regular social situations — like joking around — can backfire in situations where there's a power imbalance. Even a friendly 'How are you? Can I talk to you for a minute?' can put people on edge when the officer's intentions are unclear. Enter the transparency statement. It's a simple sentence an officer can give at the start of a wide range of interactions with community members — from traffic stops to meet and greets to simply stopping to check on someone who looks cold. The statement quickly and clearly explains why they've initiated the interaction. While it sounds simple, our studies with real people and police officers show that a transparency statement can make a difference. A transparency statement is not an exact script. Officers can and should word their transparency statements in a way that captures their true goal for the interaction. For example, one officer's statement was: 'Hi, I'm Officer [Name], how's it going? I'm out here walking around just trying to get to know my beat and my community. Is it OK if I talk to you for a minute?' In this opening statement, the officer states that their intent is to get to know the community, not take the person to task for wrongdoing. Another officer's statement was similar but more casual in tone: 'I'm just walking around getting to know everybody that's hanging out in the area to introduce myself and make sure you're doing OK.' Again, this officer makes clear their benevolent intent from the start. Advertisement Some officers make such statements naturally. On another ride-along, we observed an interaction between two Latino officers and two Latino middle-aged men who were sitting on the curb of a busy street. The officers opened with 'Cuidado!,', or 'Be careful!' in Spanish, and then suggested the men move, explaining that where they were sitting was dangerous for both them and the cars whizzing by. With clear information about the officers' intentions, the two men understood and packed up immediately. These officers hit each of the four key elements that we've pinpointed for effective transparency statements. The first is timing. The statement should be made as soon as possible, to set the tone for the interaction from the outset. Next is benevolence. Officers should communicate an honest reason for the interaction that is ideally motivated by helping the community and specific individuals. This works only if the intention feels genuine — the third characteristic of a good transparency statement. Last, the statement needs to be personal. Officers should speak in the first person (e.g.., 'I'm worried about your safety') and refer to the situation at hand. Generic statements about department-wide efforts to engage the community don't work as well (e.g., 'Our department has a new initiative to get to know community residents'). In our field studies, transparency statements have a simple but powerful effect. In one experiment, we measured electrical signals given off by participants' skin, which indicate stress, during interactions with police officers. We also analyzed the language spoken during the exchanges and surveyed participants after the interactions. Advertisement When officers implemented transparency statements, community members were more likely to respond using language associated with positive rapport and trust-building. They spoke more words during the conversation, suggesting a greater level of engagement. Our skin measurements also indicated they were calmer and more open to the interaction. In tests where an officer did not open a conversation with a transparency statement, skin results showed that stress levels continued to rise over the course of the conversation. In surveys after the interaction, community members were less likely to report feeling threatened: 40 percent said they felt the threat posed by the officer was low versus 29 percent without a transparency statement. And more people reported that they trusted the police officer and his or her investment in their well-being (55 percent versus 46 percent). Around one in five adults in the United States has Teaching the method takes mere minutes, though making it second nature takes practice. After the promising results from our initial experiment, we've begun training officers in one city and will be testing outcomes across the department and the community over the next year. Transparency statements are a simple concept, and that's part of their beauty. Law enforcement officers face a Advertisement
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Chad announces suspension of visas to US citizens in response to Trump travel ban
N'DJAMENA, Chad (AP) — Chad's President Mahamat Idriss Deby has announced that his country will suspend the issuing of visas to U.S. citizens in response to the Trump administration's decision to ban Chadians from visiting the United States. President Donald Trump on Wednesday resurrected a hallmark policy of his first term when he announced the visa ban on 12 countries including Chad, accusing them of having 'deficient' screening and vetting, and historically refusing to take back their own citizens who overstay in the United States. The new ban targets Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. There will also be heightened restrictions on visitors from seven others in the new travel policy, which takes effect Monday at 12:01 a.m. In a Facebook post, Chad's president on Thursday said he is directing his government to suspend visas to U.S. citizens 'in accordance with the principles of reciprocity.' 'Chad has no planes to offer, no billions of dollars to give but Chad has his dignity and pride,' Deby said, referring to the $400 million luxury plane offered to his administration as a gift by the ruling family of Qatar. Republic of Congo calls the ban a mistake The new travel policy has triggered varied reactions from Africa, whose countries make up seven of the 12 countries affected by Trump's outright visa ban with some exemptions. In the Republic of Congo, government spokesperson Thierry Moungalla said he believes the country was among those affected because of a 'misunderstanding' over an armed attack in the U.S. with the perpetrators 'mistaken' to be from the Republic of Congo. 'Obviously, Congo is not a terrorist country, is not home to any terrorist, is not known to have a terrorist vocation. So we think that this is a misunderstanding and I believe that in the coming hours, the competent diplomatic services of the government will contact the American authorities here,' he said in the capital of Brazzaville. In Sierra Leone, among countries with heightened travel restrictions, Information Minister Chernor Bah said the country is committed to addressing the concerns that prompted the ban.
