Politics has the ability to make strange bedfellows.
And on Wednesday, it was Iowa Senate Democrats in bed with large corporations and executives defending those companies’ “right” to suppress the free speech rights of Iowans.
The irony wasn’t lost on everyone, though. Republican Senators Jeff Taylor and Zach Whiting pointed out the craziness of it all.
“On the one hand, I hear throughout the state of Iowa Democrats who one week are denouncing fat cats and millionaires and the next week they are defending fat cats and millionaires,” Taylor said.
“But when I hear Democrats saying that we need to be pro-growth and pro-business, this rhetoric gives me flashbacks, and not in a good way, to the Mitt Romney campaign of 2012. I don’t see that kind of perspective and this is true in this context of the Big Tech companies, as promoting the free market — the genuinely free market. This is crony capitalism, this is special interest giveaways, these are billionaires who are not progressive, their point of view is as reactionary as you can get, these are union-busting billionaires and it’s ironic in my view when I hear Democrats defending them.”
Whiting shared similar sentiments.
“The greatest defenders of the wealthiest plutocrats in the world are Democrats in the Iowa Senate,” Whiting said. “So, let’s put that on a postcard, the greatest defenders of the wealthiest plutocrats in the world are Iowa Senate Democrats.”
More than once Iowa Senate Democrats spoke against the bill and in defense of big business. Huge business. Gigantic business.
Why?
Because today those Big Tech companies are silencing conservative speech.
But at the surface level, the reason was all the money those companies provide inside of our state. So all a sudden all the tax breaks and incentives that these rich corporations receive are all worth it — at least to Iowa Senate Democrats.
I won’t get into the numbers shared by the Democrats, because in all honesty, I don’t care about the numbers in this instance. Free speech, in my mind, is not for sale.
However, Iowa Senate Democrats finally sided with large corporations.
All it cost Iowans was their First Amendment right to free speech.
Thankfully Iowa Senate Democrats are the minority voice in that chamber.
And because it is the GOP that controls the Iowa Senate, Iowans have elected leaders fighting to regain that First Amendment right to free speech in the public square.
Wednesday’s vote on the Big Tech censorship bill in which every Iowa Republican voted to defend Iowans’ First Amendment right to free speech and every single Iowa Senate Democrat voted against it made one thing very clear:
Free speech is for sale in Iowa.
Well, free conservative speech.
