I remember a conversation with a former colleague, whose family immigrated to the U.S. from the former East Germany in the 1990s.

His parents, who were in their early forties, had lived under the Communist regime all their lives. The colleague was seven years old when they arrived in the U.S.

He revealed the cultural shock for his parents wasn't the luxuries of free-market capitalism, but instead the freedom.

He remembered his mother being shocked instead of being amused by Jay Leno's unsparing jokes during the Clinton scandal. She wondered if he would face the "consequences."  

Decades of conditioning under a Communist regime where dissidents were met with an iron fist had rendered her unable to even comprehend the idea of freedom. Despite being aware of her First Amendment rights, she couldn't fathom being critical of the powerful. She was unable to speak or even laugh out loudly in public. She hesitated to be critical of anyone in power even with neighbors. In Communist East Germany, it was not unusual for neighbors to report on one another for expressing the "wrong" opinion. 

She even hesitated to contact her congressman or senator because she feared it may be perceived as dissent.

Once at a restaurant, an inebriated man at a neighboring table launched into a rant against the government, she expected law enforcement officials to summarily arrest him. But nothing of the kind occurred, he was pacified by friends and cheered by the waiters.

It took decades in the U.S. to liberate her mind.

The account is worth mentioning because, a few decades ago, the U.S. was truly a bastion of free expression. You could say what you pleased without fear of reprisals, you could politically support whoever you wanted and not face any discrimination or violence.

Alas, those days seem like a distant dream.

Recently Elon Musk appeared on Tucker Carlson's show on X. Musk joked that if Trump were to lose, he is 'f--ked,’ he joked about a long prison sentence and his companies being targeted.

It's not just Musk. A few years back, a friend who made multiple donations to Trump's campaign received a notification from the IRS that there were errors in his tax returns. He assumed it was reprisal for his support of President Trump. He was confident that there was no error in his tax returns but expected a Kafkaesque persecution.

"I hope I will be placed in a minimum-security prison where the catering is good and they show good movies. Maybe I can catch up with my reading," he joked.

Fortunately, his fears were unfounded, the IRS notified him that they erred and that his tax returns were without flaws.

I have heard many such accounts of Trump supporters fearful of the government and joking about arrests.

People often employ humor to address hard truths and their deepest, darkest fears. This is what Musk and my friend did.

Decades ago, humor about being imprisoned for supporting the "wrong" individual or expressing an "unapproved" idea would have seemed preposterous. When satirists joked about repression, they had to cite Communist regimes or dictatorships, or Nazi Germany.

But now the repression is closer to home.

The 'Twitter Files' series revealed how the U.S. government worked closely with the social media giant to repress 'unapproved' ideas and to suppress accounts challenging the government.

A Twitter user, Douglass Mackey, was recently sentenced to seven months in prison. Mackey was originally charged in early 2021, was convicted in March of conspiring to deprive others of their right to vote, and faced up to 10 years in prison.

What was Mackey's crime? He shared a satirical meme that the state deemed as election interference.

Citizens who felt that the 2020 presidential elections were unfair landed in the capital on January 6th, 2021, to have their voices heard. The protest did go overboard, as most protests do.

So how did the state react?

The protest, in which the demonstrators weren't even armed, was branded as an "insurrection." Many protestors were found guilty and were awarded draconian punishment. One of the protestors was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the government ordered draconian lockdowns. Regular people violating the lockdown were punished while those in power doing the same suffered no consequences. Following state-ordered vaccine mandates, those refusing to take the untested vaccine were compelled to quit their jobs.

The Biden administration set up a 'Disinformation Governance Board' whose stated function was to ensure national security by combating "misinformation" and "disinformation" on social media. The powers of this board weren't clearly stated but the principle was that the government would sit in judgment of its citizens and become the arbiter of what should and should not be allowed.

This has an impact on people's thinking.

Trump-supporting friends living in Democrat states tell me they refrain from overt display of their political preferences or ideas that run contrary to the liberal groupthink because they fear being ostracized. They also fear it may have an impact on their employment.

Larry David depicted this in "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Larry's misanthropic character, who lives in liberal Los Angeles, discovers a perfect ploy to avoid human interaction -- wearing a MAGA hat.

It must be remembered that totalitarian states don't have laws that criminalize dissent. They merely accuse dissenters of engaging in seditious activities, conspiring against the state, or causing public harm. The notorious Ugandan dictator Idi Amin once said "There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech.” They brutalize a few and the rest fall in line.

Now it would be a vast overstatement to suggest that the U.S. is the equivalent of a totalitarian state. But a long journey begins with one step in a certain direction, and the Harris-Biden administration has begun that journey.

Real freedom is when the mind is free and fearless. When citizens hesitate to support a political party or engage in self-censorship, the first amendment in the Constitution is rendered meaningless.

The only indisputable way to stop this totalitarian push is to vote for Trump.

PS: The colleague's mother's fears for Jay Leno may have turned out to be true, albeit decades later.

When Leno was replaced by Jimmy Fallon, he was dominating the ratings, there was no business reason to replace him.

Some observers claimed it was because Leno wasn't a hateful liberal, like his archrival David Letterman and other late-night "comics" such as Jon Stewart. Leno would unsparingly mock Obama's incompetence and his scandals while others shamelessly fawned.

The worst Letterman would say when Obama was floundering was "Is he Bushing it up a bit?"

Following Leno's departure, almost a decade ago, all late-night shows, apart from ‘Gutfeld,’ function as Democrat propagandists.

If Leno's firing was truly for partisan reasons, it proves that freedoms began to erode under Obama.

Image: AT via Magic Studio