Monday, September 9, 2024
Topic: Policy
Content Type: Opinion
Keywords:
Supreme Court, NetChoice, Citizens United, moderation, social media, Romney
Democrats Implicitly Admit Corporations Are People
In 2010, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In it, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations (and unions) had free speech rights as did other non- and for-profit organizations. On August 11, 2011, Mitt Romney, in a response to a demand to raise taxes on corporations, argued that "Corporations are people."
Both events left enormous impacts on the body politic. This was used as a political bludgeon by the Obama campaign. Also, "At the DNC, [Elizabeth] Warren offered a...stinging rejoinder to Romney & co." It continued to be used against him even beyond the 2012 election.
Citizens United has been used as a Democratic bogeyman even longer. Biden in 2020; "Vice President Harris has been a vocal opponent of the disastrous Citizens United decision" and introduced a constitutional amendment to overturn it. The Wikipedia page has a list of additional opposition.1
For those with a deep memory, a consistent policy platform, and an eye for hypocrisy, it wouldn't have escaped their notice that the left's stance on NetChoice is entirely at odds with their stance on Citizens United. There are two NetChoice cases where Florida and Texas have passed laws restricting social media platforms' ability to moderate their users.
The reactionary left, automatically sides with NetChoice. They're just trying to censor racists and false information, and they're going up against elected Republicans from red states.
Some may realize, though most do not, that the NetChoice Argument is the Citizens United Argument. Corporations have free speech rights. In the latter, that allowed them to create political messaging, and in the former, it allows them to moderate their users and censor posts.2
Corporations are indeed people.
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1As an aside, Citizens United is one decision, in a long line of them, where the left made hyperbolic, end-of-the-world claims that were never borne out by reality.2Note, that this also applies, in reverse, to conservatives who support the Florida and Texas laws.