A federal grand jury on Friday ruled that Rudy Giuliani must pay two Fulton County poll workers $148 million for spreading baseless allegations regarding their role in disrupting the 2020 election. Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea ArShaye faced targeted harassment and multiple instances of intimidation after Giuliani claimed the pair participated in a fake ballot processing scheme that helped to overturn the election in Georiga.
While the punitive damages were excessive and will likely be substantially reduced, the facts of the matter remain the same: Rudy Giuliani knowingly ruined the lives of two innocent poll workers by intentionally spreading baseless allegations while many on the right cheered him on.
These same people on the right are now claiming this is a free-speech issue and are lumping Giuliani in with the Alex Jones billion-dollar verdict and the Fox News $787 million settlement with Dominion Voting. Charlie Kirk listed these instances as free speech violations and ominously asked his Twitter following, “Are you next?”
Unless you willfully lie about two poll workers, repeatedly claim the parents of murdered Sandy Hook first graders are lying, or baselessly defame the credibility of a voting machine company without any hint of evidence, you’re not “next.” In fact, it has never been legal to publicly defame and spread lies intended to ruin the lives of private citizens.
Normal people understand this. It’s not a difficult concept to grasp that there is a clear distinction between free speech and defamation. But for those on the right who have turned politics into their religion, there is no demarcation line separating truth from the senseless political rhetoric of their preferred hyper-online political leaders.
It surprises me none that on the same day Guiliani’s judgment was announced, a baseless report was circulated on fringe right-wing sites claiming that Brian Kemp notified Brad Raffespurger that 17,852 invalid votes were counted in the 2020 election in Fulton County Georgia. While there simply is no shred of evidence to support the claim, many of the same “free speech” advocates that lept to Giuliani’s defense pointed to the report as empirical truth that Giuliani was innocent and the election was indeed stolen.
The moral rot of some on the right should disturb every one of us who claims to believe in objective truth. These same people who believe a boy cannot identify as a girl due to biological evidence repeatedly claim an election was stolen and when pressed for evidence, hide under the guise of free speech.
As much as mainstream media outlets like to point to the insanity of these hypocritical Republicans, they shoulder an immense amount of blame. The increasingly editorial nature of mainstream media has earned them an all-time low trust rating with the American people. When a nation does not trust the press that purports to give them the news of the day, it should be no wonder that so many friends and family members fall for the prevailing conspiracy theory of the day.
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