‘There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy,” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz once insisted. That was hardly a marginal outlook within the Democratic Party. “Misinformation can erode people’s confidence in elections,” Connecticut’s deputy secretary of state, Scott Bates, agreed, “and we view that as a critical threat to the democratic process.” He and his fellow Democratic officials warned that false political narratives are often promoted by hostile foreign powers, and they can lead the unstable to violently lash out at their surroundings. In their report on the “crisis of disinformation and misinformation” in America, Joe Biden’s advisers pledged to “counter the influence and impact of dangerous conspiracy theories that can provide a gateway to terrorist violence.”
These and other Democrats were wrong to contend that Americans’ civil rights were contingent, but they had reason to worry that those who are susceptible to suggestion are liable to act on their delusions. Today, however, that urgent mission has fallen out of fashion on the left. The self-appointed disinformation police have disbanded, and the mechanisms that were once devoted to countering false but popular narratives have sputtered to a halt. It’s no coincidence that this sudden outbreak of lethargy coincides with the growing appeal of misinformation among Americans on the left.
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