Some are calling it rowdy; others say raucous. There’s this more concrete description, too, from Tony Katz:
Everyone else is talking to each other, yelling at each other, yelling at the moderators, yelling at the guy in the rafters….
And talking over each other, interrupting each other, trying to drown out each other. Recall the 2015-2016 Republican primary debates—they were rowdy, often rude, as participants occasionally interrupted or tried to talk over each other. Tuesday’s Progressive-Democrat debate was nothing but a constant rolling drumbeat of that.
I have a different take on that debate from “some,” “others,” and Katz.
This debate was a clear and present demonstration of Progressive-Democrats’ view of free speech. Their interruptions and talkings-over were not occasional, nor were they done in the heat of the moment, for all the zeal of their arguments.
No, their interruptions and talkings-over were demonstrative of their attitude toward the speech of anyone who disagrees with them. What any particular Progressive-Democrat decides he has to say is the only thing worth hearing. What others have to say—are already saying—is just too trivial, too unimportant to waste time on; the new speaker will just start talking, and those others should just shut up.
It’s of a piece with one of them insisting that the others should drop out of the primaries altogether and get out of his way.
Tuesday’s verbal melee also was demonstrative of their views of us in the audience and in TV viewer-land. Progressive-Democrats will tell us what we should hear; they will tell us what we will be permitted to hear. We’re wholly unfit to decide that for ourselves.
And that’s what they’ll inflict on our free speech rights if they gain the White House and the Senate and hold the House. Freedom’s just another word for “Shut up; I’m talking.”