The chilling price of truth

Kate Starbird is no shrinking violet. At six foot one inch and 153 pounds she was the Naismith College Player of the Year for Stanford University basketball back in the 1990s. Today she’s a researcher and fact-checker, tasked to analyze large-scale disasters and other mass disruptions, everything from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to the attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

It was also her job to find out what went wrong with the Covid-19 pandemic, what mistakes were made, what lies were told. She is an unabashed, unapologetic finder of the truth wherever it may lead. That makes her a hero to everyone except the shouty, half-dressed, screech monkey called James Daniel Jordan and the fanatical Republican Party he represents. Unfortunately for Kate Starbird, Jim Jordan has the power to screw up her life, and he’s done everything to use that power to do just that.

As chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, the former Ohio State wrestling coach abuses his power in order to make a living hell of the lives of people whose job it is to discover the truth. Jordan noticed that virtually every time he has an opinion about anything he’s wrong, so instead of adjusting his opinions he’s made it his personal crusade to destroy anyone who notices when he’s wrong. In Jordan’s world, in the battleground for the truth it’s reality that’s got it wrong.

Jordan has viciously gone after Dr Starbird because he hates her. He hates that she’s an intelligent and rational academic whose sole purpose in life is to discover the truth and help human beings make better decisions. He hates that she is an exposer of disinformation. Jordan loves disinformation. As it was with Nazi Germany in the 1930s, Jordan cannot tolerate academics who don’t toe the party line.

Thanks to people like Jim Jordan, Starbird and other academics have come under fire from hate groups. In May, the founder of the conspiracy-theory clearing house “Gateway Pundit” and others sued Starbird and Stanford academics Alex Stamos and Renée DiResta, alleging that they are part of a “government-private censorship consortium” that tramples on free speech. Starbird and people like her have become lightening rods for MAGA idiots who love Donald Trump and, as a consequence, despise the truth.

“The political part is intimidating, to have people with a lot of power in this world making false claims, false accusations about our work,” said Starbird. “We are putting that out of our minds and doubling down on the work, but we’re stepping a little bit away from the spotlight, because those tactics work.”

One way in which Starbird stepped away was to delete her Twitter account. Previously she had 50,000 followers, mostly academics and admirers. But for Starbird, thanks to the destroying influence of the Ohio congressman and others, Twitter became a bitter place of frequent death threats and intimidation.

The chilling effect is felt across academia. As was true in Nazi Germany, academics are becoming afraid to speak their minds. Because they are only human, many are capitulating with the people who intimidate them. They are afraid of being physically attacked or even murdered, they’re afraid for their children and loved ones. It’s a nightmare scenario against which there is ultimately no defence and no justice.

As a congressman Jordan is protected from civil or criminal recourse. He can’t be dragged into court the way he can drag others before his committee. He can subpoena anyone he wants and any records he wants with infuriating impunity. He can and has subpoenaed students, interns, professors and other academics engaged in any research he doesn’t like — subpoenas for their records, tweets, emails and all documents pertaining to their work, and he has threatened them with prison if they fail to comply.

The laws that protect Jim Jordan are the same laws that protected Joseph McCarthy back in the 1950s, and Jordan is exploiting that protection with the same swaggering arrogance. For as long as he holds power he will continue to harm Americans he dislikes.

And we all know how much the Republican Party hates whistleblowers. When Donald Trump was being impeached for blackmailing the president of Ukraine it was the whistleblower Republicans went after. In their search to destroy President Joe Biden their own alleged whistleblowers have either died or disappeared. Let’s face it, in the world of Republicans whistleblowers do not fare well.

The chilling effect of their hatred for the truth and intimidation of truth tellers is the scandal of Republicans. This isn’t how Americans are supposed to do business. This is Mafia stuff. This is Nazi stuff. Shame on them, and shame on anyone who follows their conceits with glassy-eyed obedience. They will wind up in the same place with everyone who ever practised this form of evil — from Hitler to Stalin to McCarthy — in the rubbish bin of history. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.