When Freedom of Speech Is No Longer Free

C.J. Hopkins, an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin, speaks openly about the pathologized totalitarianism that is subtly taking over society. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he criticized lockdowns and COVID-19 shot mandates, as well as the censorship of dissenters.

During the early phases of the pandemic, Hopkins’ work was heavily censored by YouTube and Facebook, which went so far as to even suspend or restrict the accounts of people who tried to share Hopkins’ posts.¹ Now, he’s facing another challenge to freedom and autonomy, as he’s facing criminal charges for a satirical tweet.

German Government Prosecutes Hopkins Over Tweets

The Berlin State Prosecutor’s office is pursuing criminal charges against Hopkins for “disseminating propaganda, the content of which is intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist organization.”² The propaganda referenced is two tweets from 2022, which include an image with a mask carrying a faint image of a swastika. Writing in The Atlantic, journalist James Kirchick notes:³

“To argue that Hopkins was advancing National Socialism by imposing a swastika over a face mask is absurd. He was clearly doing the opposite: invoking a symbol of what is widely regarded as the most evil and destructive ideology in human history to express his feelings — however histrionic — for state-promulgated public-health policies he dislikes.

Hopkins was ‘comparing the evolution of one system which I think is totalitarian in nature to the evolution of another totalitarian system that we all know,’ he told me, not glorifying fascism.”

But in Germany, national laws prohibit Nazi insignia, which is why Amazon banned the sale of Hopkins’ book, “The Rise of the New Normal Reich,” which also features the swastika-emblazoned mask, in Germany, the Netherlands and Austria. If Hopkins is found guilty, he could be fined about $4,000 or sent to jail for 60 days. Kirchick writes:⁴

“Hopkins sees his ordeal as part of a broader ‘criminalization of dissent’ sweeping the Western world. ‘Basically anyone prominent, halfway prominent, and even little fish like me, if you get on the radar of challenging the official ideology, the program of the day, they’re making examples of people is basically what it is,’ he told me.

Against his lawyer’s advice, Hopkins republished the tweets in his Substack newsletter — sparking, as he reported, a second criminal investigation, this time for minimizing Nazi crimes.”

Are Authoritarian Measures Accelerating in Germany?

In “The Rise of the New Normal Reich,” Hopkins details how measures of totalitarian control are being normalized around the world. Depending on where you live, you may or may not be experiencing these things firsthand.

“If you’re aware of how people are behaving in different countries or in different states in the U.S., what have you, there are many places where it is becoming just completely normal to walk around with a medical-looking mask on, and people don’t think twice about segregating and banning people and imposing vaccine mandates and what have you.

All of these measures that were rolled out during the shock and awe phase are just subtly becoming a part of daily life,” he explained during our 2022 interview.⁵

“We’re being conditioned to walk around in our lives, terrified of some pathogen that is going to come and attack us, or some health threat. It’s really, it’s a wholesale revision of reality, and it’s frightening.”⁶ At the heart of his argument is that the global-capitalist ruling establishment, which Hopkins refers to as GloboCap, is using fear as a strategy for control over the population.

In Germany, Hopkins says fascist measures have been quickly accelerating. “Seriously, assuming you don’t live here, you likely have no idea how fascistic German society and culture has become,” he wrote in November 2023, “and how quickly the transformation has occurred. It began in the Spring of 2020 with the introduction of the ‘Corona measures,’ and has been intensifying ever since.”⁷

“The shock and awe phase that we went through in ’20 and ’21 is over,” Hopkins said in our interview. “You can’t sustain shock and awe like that forever. What we’re experiencing now is really the normalization of the pathologization of society.”⁸ Even the charges against Hopkins seem baseless, as, even in Germany, Nazi imagery is allowed for certain purposes, including countering anti-constitutional activities. Kirchick continues:⁹

“So far, although he retains U.S. citizenship, Hopkins’s case has attracted little attention in the American media. But his predicament offers an important opportunity to examine how we think about the most loaded political symbols — and to cherish the exceptional free-speech culture ensured by America’s First Amendment.

On its face, the charge against Hopkins seems specious. Although the display of Nazi imagery is generally prohibited in Germany, the country’s criminal code allows the display of such symbols for ‘civic education, countering anti-constitutional activities, art and science, research and education, the coverage of historic and current events, or similar purposes.'”