I can't find hard numbers on how many republicans/dems votes yes or no on it, but it passed 98-1 in the senate, and only 66 no votes in the house. Yes a lot of republicans in congress (probably all of them at the time) voted yes on it, but most democrats voted yes on it too.
Banning him was so unnecessary. The overwhelming majority though he is basically a nutjob and made fun of him for selling his man pills. Attempts to silence him almost made him a martyr. Everyone arguing he was or is a security threat should think about therapy and has now people against them that are concerned with the larger picture.
And the panic will continue because of that. More people will get banned. It isn't a fallacy to believe these things escalate.
Alex Jones was never right wing, but has continually been tarred with being so by anxious liberal mobs. He was really anti Bush, and across partisan lines has always been against anything that could be construed as authoritarian.
You've cherry picked an outlier. How many non-crazy conservative pundits or politicians can you name who opposed the Patriot Act, or the formation of Homeland Security, or the expanded powers given to cops and federal agencies? How many prominent conservatives spoke out in defense of Edward Snowden? Was it conservatives or liberals in the media who risked their lives and careers to organize and document the information he released?
During the Bush era, the opposition to the authoritarian trajectory of the war on terror was largely from liberals, although it was often strictly partisan. Conservative media completely fell in line with the Bush administration. I thought this would change when Obama was elected, but it didn't, and authoritarianism remained a driving force in conservative politics and media throughout Trump's presidency.
COVID-19 has brought some more conservatives onto the anti-authoritarian side for sure. But I'm not confident this is a durable change.
Count me in too. I can't stand erosion of society through identity politics and woke'ism. It's on the coverpage of the Economist this week (I am what they refer to as classical liberal): https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2021-09-04
Nah is a blanket response to the parent post of hyperbole and faux-objectivity.
His whole post was ridiculous; the GOP has always been just as, if not moreso ready to trade ANYTHING for "security" (security theater mostly), usually if there is a correlating premise of ensuring electoral results in their favor, which they usually beat the Dems over the head with as the "national security" party. With the last half decade of debacles under Trump, the "national security" moniker is arguably up for grabs, but the Dems are half-assed and flailing and the GOP is a viscous joke looking for a punchline (hence why I left the latter to go independent, since the former is a lousy home, even if they aren't a traitorous one).
Almost all the "left wing" continued on with the war on terror and upped the anty in some cases. Obama essentially doubled down on what Bush did and Biden sure didn't oppose it.
It might do you some good to go back and look at who supported all of it in the beginning. It certainly was not some right wing only endeavor. There were very few politicians opposed to any of it.
