The arrest of independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, in connection with an anti-ICE protest that disrupted a religious service in Minnesota, is a test for the American people. Well, some of us. Many of us already didn't like what we saw happening across the country. Many believed the anti-American threats during the campaign and voted against this regime in 2024.
So this is proof for Americans who, after seeing law enforcement apparently use a 5-year-old as bait and shoot Renee Good and Alex Pretti to death, still say they're okay with everything.
Voters who agreed with Donald Trump when he said “they're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime” in 2015, and agreed that 10 years later he appeared in Epstein's files and pardoned criminals, including a corrupt former Latin American leader who took bribes to allow 400 tons of cocaine to be smuggled into the United States.
This is not a test for voters whose biggest concern was food prices or border security. This is proof for voters who used that rhetoric about groceries and the border to cover up their unpleasant feelings toward immigrants. The same feelings that other groups (the Jews, the Italians, the Irish) received when they first came to this land. The ethnicity may be different, the conspiracy theories may be new, but at the end of the day, it's the same old predictable story.
So if you are the type who votes only to own the liberals, the arrest of journalists is a test for you.
On Jan. 18, protesters, believing that one of the pastors at Cities Church in St. Paul was also the acting field director of the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, entered the building and disrupted a service. The only reason anyone outside of St. Paul knew any of this is because we have freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Because people like Lemon and Fort had the courage to be there, knowing that they had 250 years of American tradition supporting their right to do their job. That is the goal of the First Amendment.
Remember, if we don't have journalists like Fort and my friend Lemon—people who are willing to do the work necessary to document history, read legislation, or hold elected officials accountable—then there will no longer be freedom of the press. You have media controlled by the State through the oligarchy. This may seem good to some factions now, but the problem with “now” is that it never lasts. However, the Constitution has a real chance of holding up. But it needs constant protection.
In the old days, the ultra-wealthy often bought up local media companies to make money or gain prestige in the community. Now it seems as if the goal of many owners is to control and stop journalism. Once the free press is caged, free speech has little room to fly. That's the byproduct of this wave of media consolidation, whether the billionaires involved in these acquisitions planned to do so or not.
Furthermore, historically journalism has been attacked by governments not because it was a threat to society, but because it threatens those who want to control society. The reason most presidents argue with journalists is because they want to control the narrative.
But it seems that the current president wants to control reality.
The impulse to rewrite reality is why Trump created Truth Social. That is why the administration publishes AI-generated images and manipulated photographs.
The sense that the president can create his own truth is why the administration can one day defend the Second Amendment and the next suggest that legally carrying a gun is a fatal mistake. After all, if you're free to trample on the First Amendment, what's the problem with turning around the Second when necessary?
Trampling the rights of the people: that is the test, for the shrinking minority of Americans who still support Trump. He is experimenting to see if enough of his followers will accept having their rights taken away, as long as the theft does not appear to harm them.
For many Americans who have never voted for Trump, Lemon and Fort's arrests don't come as a total surprise. We have seen the “Trump 2028” hats and we take this thinly veiled threat against the 22nd Amendment seriously.
But for Americans who vehemently denounced President Obama for wearing a tan suit, where exactly does “arresting journalists for doing their job” rank on the threat to democracy scale? And why do you think Trump is doing this now?
Almost a year ago, Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said she had Epstein's client list on her desk to review. Then the administration dithered and refused to hand over his records. On Friday it finally released 3 million pages of documents.
And on Thursday night, knowing that release was imminent, the Justice Department arrested journalists.
That doesn't seem like a coincidence.
It doesn't even seem political. It all seems like a test that democracy desperately needs the United States to pass.
YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow
