What Is It That People Are Afraid To Say These Days?

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Here’s the latest on the brutal muzzling of free speech in America:

A new Cato Institute/​YouGov national survey of 2,000 Americans finds that 62% of Americans say the political climate these days prevents them from saying things they believe because others might find them offensive. This is up from 2017 when 58% agreed with this statement.

That’s an increase of . . . 4 percent! Clearly George Floyd and the forces of political correctness have wreaked havoc on American culture.

On a more serious note, polls like this would be a lot more useful if they tried to dive into what people are afraid to say. If it’s something like “Black people are lazy” then I’d say the increase to 62 percent means that Americans are increasingly wary of expressing racist ideas in public, and that’s a good thing. On the other hand, if it’s something like “Class-based affirmative action is a good idea” then we might have a real problem. So which is it?

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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