Prices have skyrocketed under Trump. ONE thing has become more expensive than ever.
Tariffs and inflation are making life pricier in America. But the president has made the cost of THIS ONE vital American commodity rise to its HIGHEST levels in modern history.
Americans have spent the past year watching prices climb.
Groceries cost more. Housing costs more. Living a normal life in this country feels like it costs more. Specifically, the president’s tariffs are driving up the price of imported goods, and the ripple effects are working their way through the economy. Families like mine feel it every time we open our wallets. (For me, waiting for the final price on the grocery store register is a weekly moment of dread!)
But there’s another price that’s risen faster than any consumer good.
The price of dissent.
I don’t mean that metaphorically. I mean it in the most literal sense possible: speaking out against those in power in the United States has become more costly — financially, professionally, and personally — than at any point in modern American history. I know because I paid that price. Several times now, in fact. I spoke about this in a recent TED Talk that was released online last week. You can watch it below.
When I chose to speak publicly about what I witnessed inside the Trump administration, the consequences were immediate and severe. The president issued orders targeting me personally. Allies and media surrogates sought to destroy my reputation. Professional opportunities evaporated. Friends disappeared. Threats multiplied, and my security expenses went through the roof. Then it all happened again last April when the president ordered me investigated for “treason.”
This wasn’t accidental. It was the point. Wannabe dictators like Donald Trump punish dissenters to silence them, but that’s only part of the story. The real point is to make examples of them. The goal goes beyond simply hurting one person; they desire to raise the perceived cost for everyone else.
Think I’m exaggerating? After Trump sanctioned me with an Executive Order last year, his loyalists literally told the media that the purpose of doing so wasn’t even to harm me, necessarily, but to threaten everyone else.
“Donald Trump needed to send a message,” one top official told Rolling Stone.
A message to who, you ask? To you. To everyone. Their message to America was, in essence, “Don’t speak ill of the president publicly, unless you want the federal government to investigate you.”
Agencies are now doing this in widespread fashion. A New York Times story revealed this weekend that DHS is demanding identifying information for people who criticize Trump’s ICE operations online. Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi has revealed that the administration is expanding its “domestic terrorism” targets, based on a presidential order that categorizes potential terror suspects as people who express “anti-American,” “anti-Christian,” and “anti-capitalist” views.
Does it get more dystopian than that?
Once again, in a very literal sense, the cost of dissenting in the United States is skyrocketing. Ordinary people are afraid to “like” posts on social media for fear of government monitoring or retribution. While that may be misplaced fear (for most people), the fact that it’s now a shared sentiment shows how powerful the threats of intimidation from the White House have become.
In economics, there are only a couple ways to make the price go down if something is too expensive. For instance, if there’s a shortage of pencils across America, the price of pencils will shoot up! To fix the problem, you can do one of two things. (A) You can DECREASE DEMAND. Convince everyone pencils are worthless and they should buy pens instead… or… (B) You can INCREASE THE SUPPLY. The companies will feverishly make more pencils, ship them to stores, and the prices will go back down.
The same is true of dissent. When fewer people are willing to speak out, the price of dissent rises. Each dissenter becomes more isolated, more vulnerable, more exposed. The risks become concentrated.
To fix the problem, we have only two choices. Above. When it comes to free speech, the first one seems like a terrible option. We don’t want to DECREASE DEMAND for the truth in the United States — and tell people to just get used to being targeted if they speak their minds. That sounds foolish, un-American, and about as repressive as I can imagine. If we do that, we are no longer a free society.
So the ONLY credible way to lower the price of dissent in America is to INCREASE THE SUPPLY. When more people speak up — when dissent becomes abundant rather than scarce — the price falls. The risk is distributed, and there is strength in numbers. In time, the consequences are diluted. And eventually courage becomes contagious.
This is how democracies protect themselves. The Founders understood that freedom wasn’t self-executing. They saw that it depended on competition. A competition of ideas, voices, and power centers would increase our ability to reach accord on the issues of the day and dispel falsehoods. A healthy democracy creates a marketplace where no single authority can raise the price of dissent so high that ordinary citizens cannot afford it.
That’s what is breaking down now.
The rising price of dissent is not just a personal problem for folks like me. I’ll be fine (and I’m more energized in the fight than ever because of you). Rather, it’s a systemic warning sign. It tells us that power is becoming less accountable and that fewer people feel safe challenging authority. It also tells us that the marketplace of ideas is becoming less competitive.
And like any market failure, it requires correction.
So let me say again for those who may not have heard me say it before, the solution is more dissent, not less. If we want to bring the price down, we MUST increase the supply. This is how we will make democracy competitive again and how we will make sure our free society stays “free.” We must all speak out and continue speaking out about the corruption in our nation’s capital and continue to do so.
On a note of optimism, I think we are moving in that direction every single day — from the people of Minnesota to the won’t-back-down attitude of Stephen Colbert. Americans are choosing to defy. In doing so, they’re making it safer for everyone else to do the same.
Your friend, in defiance,
Miles Taylor
You can watch my TED Talk on the rising cost of dissent, below.
this is so important, far more than people may realize
Dissent we must & dissent we will! We can NOT let the autocrats in power in this regime dictate to us how to speak, react, exercise our rights. They must be defeated or else.....!
That "or else" sounds ominous doesn't it. It's meant to sound that way for we are at "The Eve of Destruction". Many of you Boomers may recognize that song title. Take the name of the song to heart because we are in perilous waters. Make no mistake destruction of our Republic is the goal of this regime!