During President Donald Trumpâs second impeachment trial, one of his attorneys claimed that the proceeding was an attempt to limit freedom of speech as something available only to the Left â calling it the âRaskin Doctrineâ after Representative Jamie Raskin, the lead impeachment manager. While itâs good that thereâs increased awareness of the Leftâs desire to silence opposition, we shouldnât let it be limited to just Raskin. Sadly, itâs not limited to politicians, either.
Despite what was claimed by anti-Trump conservatives, the First Amendment was on the ballot in not just the 2020 election, it was at stake in 2016 as well. Raskin wasnât the first politician to target those who used the First Amendment to oppose the Left: The Cuomo-James regime in New York was targeting the NRA for destruction as a âterrorist organizationâ for the âcrimeâ of defending Americans from losing their Second Amendment rights as an unjust punishment for crimes they didnât commit. Raskin wasnât even the first in Congress â we warned, for example, of the totalitarian efforts of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.