A federal judge told the Department of Education to remove “partisan” language blaming “Democrat Senators” for the government shutdown from furloughed federal workers’ out-of-office email messages.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper sided with a federal employees’ union that alleged its members’ auto-reply emails were changed without their permission to insert the partisan message.
Cooper said the move violated the First Amendment because the government had essentially forced staffers to make a political statement against their will, a concept known as “compelled speech.”
No. It’s still doing exactly what it’s supposed to be doing: reinforcing political tribalism and radicalizing the far right against “the other side”.
Trump can’t run for office again, he doesn’t need the votes or approval. What he needs is control, and having a rabid base of armed and angry supporters taking his word as gospel is a means to that end.
And unfortunately, it works. His dissenters in the Republican party are afraid to speak out against him.