I, like many of my generation, have fallen in love with The Mandalorian, the most recent Star Wars installment, spearheaded by Jon Favreau. The new Star Wars story has enraptured fans with deep storytelling, incredible acting, and, of course, baby Yoda. The Mandalorian also introduced us to Cara Dune, played by Gina Carano. And while Cara’s story is certainly powerful, a recent development off the screen involving Gina caught my attention, as it is emblematic of a bigger societal issue growing in this country.

Gina’s relationship with Disney, and role as Cara Dune, ended abruptly after a series of Instagram posts she made concerning multiple issues. Historically, her posts have included messages dehumanizing transgender people, questioning the COVID vaccine, and spreading election fraud disinformation. Each time she posted these controversial messages, she received some backlash. However, it appears that the straw that broke the camel’s back was comparing the Nazi assaults on Jews to the way people are currently being treated for political views. Her post described the way that Nazis spread anti-Semitism so deeply into society that regular citizens committed gross acts of violence against Jews. She then asked, “How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?”

Now, there are so many things that are wrong and hurtful with what Gina has said on social media. The election was never stolen from Trump, and propagating lies to the contrary instigated a violent insurrection against our Capitol. Trans lives are human lives, and to dehumanize their existence is incredibly hurtful. However, her firing fits into a larger narrative that conservatives are pushing that they are being silenced, as Gina says in her post, for their political views. From our own Senator Hawley to Representative Taylor Greene, numerous conservatives are claiming that their political views are getting them harassed, censored, and blacklisted.

Gina’s firing in particular is important when discussing claims of political censorship, as Hollywood has a rather problematic history in that area. Older generations might remember a time when your political views could get you put on a Hollywood blacklist, almost surely ending your career. Jonathan Chait warns that we might be returning to that time, arguing that ‘Firing Actors for Being Conservative is Another Hollywood Blacklist.’ 

To understand Chait’s argument, you have to understand that “in the late 1940s and 1950s, Hollywood studios—under pressure from the right—promised they would not ‘knowingly employ a communist.’” At the time, this was the political climate. Any association with the Communist Party USA would not only end your political pursuits but could ruin your job and livelihood as well. This ‘blacklist’ was horrible for a country that claims to be a free and open democracy. One of the hallmarks of a good democracy is a free and fair exchange of ideas. And Chait is right to ring the alarm bells if we are entering another similar era.

Chait is not alone in making this argument. Across the country, a range of conservative figures are arguing that their political views are being silenced. Senator Hawley bemoans the “Tyranny of Big Tech,” and lashed out after his Simon & Schuster book deal was canceled over what he claims was “representing his constituents.” Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson argues that “unprecedented censorship is taking over American media.” It seems that a growing talking point for right-wing media is the censorship they believe their views face. To say this censorship is worrying would be an understatement, except for the fundamental mistake that these political figures are making.

Censorship is a risky action. Censoring thoughts, ideas, and messages is one thing many people take issue with in a democracy. I doubt you would find a single person who, on principle, doesn’t believe that a democracy is predicated on a free exchange of ideas. Across the board, almost all democratic scholars identify some form of freedom of political expression as fundamental to democracy. Chait echoes a mistake in his argument that many conservative minds have been arguing. While Chait claims recent actions are political view censorship, the messages that are being silenced are not political views. 70 years ago, having political associations with the Communist party or holding ideologically communist viewpoints could result in censorship. But it is not ties to the Republican party that got Gina fired or lost Hawley his book deal, nor is it conservative viewpoints that got Trump banned from Twitter. The key concept that these elites fail to grasp is that their censorship does not come from political or ideological views. It comes from spreading misinformation, inciting violence, and dehumanizing individuals. 

The best way to understand this distinction is perhaps to read the opening to Smartmatic’s $2.7 Billion lawsuit against Fox News for spreading disinformation about the 2020 election. “The Earth is round. Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election for President and Vice President of the United States. The election was not stolen, rigged, or fixed. These are facts. They are demonstrable and irrefutable.” It is not a political view to say that the election was stolen, it is a lie, just like it is not a political view to say that 5G does not cause coronavirus. Given that these are not political views, they cannot be conservative views. Chait notes that Gina’s election fraud belief is “provably false…[but] also a standard-issue Republican belief.” However, this does not make it a political belief. It is still a misconception that doesn’t warrant protection. Political views are a question of values. A conservative might believe in lower taxes, while a liberal might believe in more social security. But neither ideology, by definition, would inform an opinion on Trump’s big election fraud lie. By invoking the idea that conservatives are being silenced for their political views, Hawley and others seek to frame their censorship as fundamentally anti-democratic. In reality, they know that the comparisons they create are false, yet they support their overall narrative.

The claim that somehow those views are political stems from a consistent movement within the Republican Party to politicize things that shouldn’t be political. A great example of this trend is climate change. Although Republicans are more recently coming to accept defeat, historically the overwhelming scientific consensus that our climate was deteriorating due to our own actions was somehow a political statement. To be clear, it is not a political view. Accepting climate change as real is no different from accepting that the earth is round. However, Republicans sought to make it one to further their own political agenda, halting the shift to renewable energy sources and increasing their reliance on donors in the oil industry.

There’s a bigger conversation here about free speech. Must all speech be free? My freshman year, we all read Hate: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship by Nadine Strossen. In it, she argued that a tolerant society must tolerate all speech, and the most effective way to handle hate speech was simply to use “counterspeech”. Others argue that it is a paradox for a society to tolerate even intolerant speech. I don’t seek to take a side on that argument with this article. Instead, I seek to make a distinction in the comparisons people make. In Hollywood, people were blacklisted for holding a political view. This particular political view was that communism is good. Communism is a system of government; it says nothing about the individual value of human beings. Censoring political views is a fundamental danger to democracy. Private companies dissociating themselves from lies, while a grey area in principle, is not the same level of danger.

Our country is facing a new reckoning as lies and misinformation are reaching incredible numbers of people. Our country has to figure out how to solve this problem, and it doesn’t help that those spreading this rhetoric seek to compare themselves to true ideologues from our history. The messages they spread are not conservative ideologies, and they should be judged on the same standard that one would judge a flat-earther. Censorship of political views should be fought, but the continuing trend of conservative elites pretending their lies are somehow political views will only hurt us as we attempt to understand the spread of misinformation in our society. While I don’t know whether Disney made the right choice separating from Gina, those who use her as another example of conservative censorship would do well to remember that political ideology does not tell you there was fraud in an election. It only tells you who you want to win. 

Oliver Rosand ’23 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at orosand@wustl.edu.