Ex-Gov. Johnson questions demonstrators against Eastman

Contrary to myth, trickle-down economics isn’t the most dastardly tactic to keep people under a politician’s big foot.

Free-speech zones are worse. Concocted to hide or silence peaceful protesters, they are government’s dirtiest trick.

Then-President George W. Bush loved to employ designated free-speech areas to muzzle his critics. I once wrote about a man who challenged Bush at great personal peril. His name was Bill Neel, and he refused to stand in a prescribed free-speech area when Bush visited Neville Island, Pa.

Neel carried his sign criticizing Bush onto a public street where the president’s motorcade would pass. Police arrested Neel. A pro-Bush demonstrator waving her sign remained free, proving only select political speech was permitted by Bush and Neville Island’s subservient cops.

Neel was incensed. “In America, a designated free-speech area is a contradiction in terms,” he said.

The case went to court, and a judge acquitted Neel of the trumped-up charge of disorderly conduct. But politicians continued using designated free-speech areas to bottle up adversaries or sanitize events. It’s even happened in Santa Fe.

Police in 2017 herded protesters of the Entrada celebration off the Plaza and into a “free-speech zone.” The Plaza is a public park. Every peaceful demonstrator should have been welcome.

I salute city police officers for doing better this summer. They have not hassled demonstrators calling for Santa Fe resident John Eastman to be prosecuted. Eastman, a retired law professor, maneuvered to help former President Donald Trump remain in power after Trump lost the 2020 election.

Using good sense, police haven’t bothered the anti-Eastman demonstrators who gather at Bishops Lodge Road and Valley Drive. The same cannot be said for Gary Johnson, who was a two-term governor of New Mexico as

a Republican and twice ran for president as a Libertarian.

Johnson one recent day questioned the demonstrators in accusatory style, said Brent Lambert, who started the street-corner movement calling for Eastman to be prosecuted.

“Almost the first thing Johnson said was, ‘What makes you guys down here any different from the January 6th rioters who attacked the Capitol?’ ” Lambert said.

I asked Johnson for his account. It was remarkably similar to Lambert’s.

“I was just pointing out that perhaps there’s a comparison,” Johnson said. “To clear my conscience, I asked, ‘Are you not potentially inviting some nut job to put a bullet in [Eastman’s] head?’ ”

Johnson diminished the crimes of Jan. 6, 2021, by comparing thousands of thugs in Washington to law-abiding demonstrators in Santa Fe. Johnson also ignored his own record of using incendiary language toward Trump.

As a presidential candidate in 2016, Johnson called Trump “a pussy.” Could the word Johnson used to denigrate Trump have sparked violence by the same minions who tried to overthrow democracy in America?

“I was trying to be funny. Misfire on my part,” Johnson said. “Trump had said something like he was the fittest person who’d ever run for president.”

Johnson has misfired again. Lambert and his small group gather in a peaceful, constitutionally protected activity. The criminals who stormed the Capitol attacked police officers and tried to stop certification of the presidential election Trump lost. There is no comparison between the two sides, and Johnson knows it.

Johnson’s stand is especially disappointing given his own life’s story. He soared from little-known private contractor to governor based on many attributes. He was smart, driven and he financed his own Republican primary campaign.

Most of all, Johnson was a fresh voice who spoke honestly, even when it hurt him. He admitted during his first gubernatorial campaign to smoking marijuana and experimenting with cocaine. That might sound tame now, but in 1994 it was extraordinary.

Democratic President Bill Clinton had claimed he tried marijuana but didn’t inhale. Johnson mocked Clinton’s nonsense. “I said I’d never exhaled,” Johnson told me.

The old Johnson never would have suggested peaceful demonstrators pose a threat to anyone. He would have applauded them for exercising their First Amendment rights, especially in this instance.

“Do I agree with Eastman in any way? No,” Johnson said. “Did Trump encourage the violence on January 6th? It sure appears that way to me.”

Why then would Johnson ask law-abiding New Mexicans if they might inspire bloodshed by waving American flags and signs calling for legal action against Eastman?

The answer circles back to free-speech zones. Johnson says he wonders why the demonstrators are on the corner of a residential area instead of picketing on the Plaza.

The former governor’s question might be personal. Johnson and his girlfriend, as well as Eastman, live in the neighborhood where the demonstrators gather. If demonstrators moved to the Plaza, they would be out of sight and out of mind.

That’s a page from George W. Bush’s playbook. He didn’t mind picketers as long as they were invisible.