Finally, the purge of patriots by Twitter, You Tube, Facebook, PayPal and other Silicon Valley SJWs is getting pushback—President Trump tweeted this morning against political shadow-banning, GOP Congressman Matt Gaetz (NumbersUSA Grade: A+) is enraged that his Twitter account was (incredibly) sandbagged after he criticized the company in a hearing [Rep. Congressman Threatens Twitter With Complaint Over 'Shadow Banning,' Sputniknews.com, July 26, 2018] and American Renaissance’s law suit against its Twitter ban has cleared the first hurdle, establishing the critical point that Politically Correct purgers face legal consequences. Which is great—because I remember the Dark Age before the internet: The Newsletter Days.

As a 25-year veteran of Dissident Right movements, I can easily state that the last few years have been the most satisfying. No longer did we have to wait for an occasionally truthful article in National Review on race riots or a candid comment on racial double standards from Rush Limbaugh. Literally thousands of people can and do respond to Leftist reporters, politicians, academics, administrators, politicians and activists directly through social media. How many “normies” have been converted to the truth by simply viewing these exchanges?

This was the Dissident Right world that I discovered as a college student in the early 1990s. I use the word “discovered” advisedly, as heterodox outlets were extremely hard to find. With no Internet and an almost absolute ban in the Main Stream Media, you had to dig for mailing addresses and search in libraries for forbidden material.

My own journey began when I found Paved With Good Intentions, which helped explain what I was seeing around me with regard to race. A few years later, I discovered Chronicles magazine thanks to a (very negative) chapter in Dead Right by David Frum. In 1995, I was able to access the Internet for the first time from a work computer. Most sites back then were essentially billboards, but I did manage to find American Renaissance and subscribed to the treezine newsletter immediately.

From there, I was able to locate and subscribe to a litany of the most famous (or infamous) dissident newsletters of the 1990s. My mailbox was a veritable hit parade of SPLC thought criminals. The Rothbard-Rockwell Report, Sobrans, The Samuel Francis Letter, The Last Ditch, The Citizen’s Informer, Middle American News and Instauration were my lifeline to sanity.

Nowadays, young patriots can simply log on to the Internet and be connected in seconds to the most recent news, reviews, blogs and happenings. But in the mid-1990s we had to wait for the mailman to deliver a monthly print issue.

I can still recall the excitement to open the mailbox and find a new American Renaissance or Chronicles had arrived. I knew that hours of informative reading lay ahead about the issues that would shape our future as a people.

Though I knew almost no one personally on the Dissident Right, I realized that people who thought like me existed throughout the US and even the world. I was introduced to books that were not reviewed in the New York Times (or the post-purge National Review) and philosophers who were not taught or even mentioned in my college courses. I would eventually attend conferences put on by the John Randolph Club and American Renaissance. There I was able to meet other dissidents in person for the first time. Most had similar stories of how they arrived at the truth.

While it is fun to reminisce about my intellectual journey and the time I call my “newsletter days,” the fact is that things have more recently been much better now for dissidents. Much of this is due to social media. Not only do we have platforms to confront, challenge and upstage the Establishment, we can correspond daily with hundreds or even thousands of people who think like us. We are reminded that we are not alone, we are correct on the issues and that we can confront the hatred and hypocrisy of the Leftist elites.

The resulting meme wars, Twitter exchanges, podcasts and You Tube channels showed the power of a few dissidents to expose the hypocrisy, lies and double standards of the Establishment. All while reaching an audience of millions.

Names such as RamZPaul, Katie Hopkins, Nicholas Fuentes, Millennial Woes and Ricky Vaughn are among the hundreds of names I had never even heard of before getting on Twitter.

Alt-Light figures such as Mike Cernovich, Paul Joseph Watson and Jordan Peterson reach an even greater amount of people through their Twitter and You Tube accounts. While some may criticize them for not going far enough, they have certainly helped to Red Pill a large number of “normies” who might not be ready for the full-on truth about racial and demographic realities.

I recently spoke with a lawyer involved in litigating against some of the Tech Totalitarians. He puts it bluntly:

The tech giants are horrified that they gave a platform to the Alt-Right and unwittingly helped put Donald Trump in office. They were all for free speech until they saw who wins in an unrestricted battle of ideas. They think that censorship works and are trying very hard to crush the Right and make sure they don’t make the same mistake again. (My emphasis.)

Silicon Valley is working with the usual Witch-Finders as well as other elites in government and the MSM. But the recent grilling of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Capitol Hill is a good sign that they will face resistance. Zuckerberg was taken to task by Senator Ted Cruz and others over the obvious bias Facebook has shown. A few examples: suppressing conservative news stories from trending news and shutting down the popular black Trump supporters Diamond and Silk. Of course, Facebook has also deleted the pages of American Renaissance and other Dissident Right figures.

Cruz was even more impressive in an April 12 editorial on FoxNews.com. He wrote:

It is virtually unheard of to see any ads or pages from liberal groups like Planned Parenthood, Moven.org or Democratic candidates being targeted for removal. Whether you call it targeting, censorship or shadow banning, these are not the actions of a “neutral public forum. Sen. Ted Cruz: Facebook has been censoring or suppressing conservative speech for years

Cruz went on to suggest that if the tech giants do not stop discriminating, they will invite government oversight:

…Engaging in discrimination of political viewpoints invites government oversight and regulation of social media. This is something that nobody wants and it invites revoking the company’s immunity from liability.

Of course, here are also alternative social media outlets such as Gab (VDARE’s account is quite active), Pew Tube, BitChute and others. But they are not nearly as big as the main tech giants, although they do provide a safety net for dissidents if we are banned—until, course, they ban us too.

Phone companies, electric companies and railroads cannot deny service to a man because they don’t like his political opinions. Why shouldn’t this apply to big-tech companies?

This is why it is such good news that Trump, and other Republicans, have begun to speak out on the issue. It is (along with immigration) a winning message for his base—and might even pull in some new voters sincerely worried about censorship.

The stakes are very high. Keeping social media platforms open is perhaps the most pressing issue for the Dissident Right as we seek to educate and defend our people and save what is left of our nation.

 It is where we are strongest and in our element. However charming the memory, patriots simply cannot afford to return to the newsletter days.

Peter Bradley (email him) writes from northern Virginia.