A recent video made with Artificial Intelligence (AI) satirizing Vermont congresswoman Becca Balint has sparked indignant hostility from the self-styled “Scrappy Little Dyke.” Vermont’s rabidly left-wing attorney general Charity Clark applied a sketchy new Vermont law to investigate the video’s creator, prompting a federal lawsuit. Charity and Becca both care far more about the free speech of criminals and immigrants than they do the political expressions of Vermonters. Ironically, that’s the video’s core message!
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AI Video Condemns Socialist Thievery
The offending video portrays Balint as a scowling carpetbagger, insensitive to Vermont’s farmers and working class. Presaging anti-socialist themes likely to dominate conservative messaging through the nation’s midterms, the AI simulation of an arrogant, beret-sporting Balint mocks the Marxist playbook of elitists feigning social angst while milking the middle class. Standing before the Vermont statehouse, AI Balint declares, “Vermont is my state. I decide what’s going to happen. Your tax money is spent, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop me.”
Onto the scene comes Vermont logger and would-be Balint challenger Mark Coester, depicted in his AI incarnation operating a large yellow backhoe that scoops up an arm-flailing Balint and deposits her in a dumpster. Says Coester, “Vermont is for Americans, not radical communists!”
Comrade Balint was none too pleased, promptly complaining about the parody:
“This ad is offensive and a dangerous example of what happens when AI is used to deceive voters…. Fabricating my voice and image to put words in my mouth is a new low. Free speech is a cornerstone of our democracy, but impersonation and deception are not.”
Impersonation is the cornerstone of political satire, which has long lampooned the decadence, fraud, and waste of the ruling classes. Going back to the Greeks (Aristophanes) and Romans (Juvenal) and inspiring amusing luminaries such as Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, and America’s beloved Mark Twain, satire has positively influenced culture, politics, and social policy for thousands of years. Will Ferrell has many times mimicked George Bush’s voice and image and “put words in his mouth” — no one is any more deceived that Mark Coester actually tipped Balint into a bin than they were that Ferrell was actually Bush when he roasted POTUS George W.
Democrats Pervert Free Speech
As a sworn member of Congress, Becca Balint has undertaken to respect and uphold the laws of the land. Instead, she is abusing her office in derogation of long-protected speech rights. Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court has firmly established protective boundaries for political speech under the First Amendment.
As Justice Anthony Kennedy opined in Citizens United v FEC:
“The First Amendment underwrites the freedom to experiment and to create in the realm of thought and speech. Citizens must be free to use new forms, and new forums, for the expression of ideas. The civic discourse belongs to the people, and the Government may not prescribe the means used to conduct it.”
Justice Kennedy recalled the example of a new technology used for political satire in 1939, when the classic political comedy Mr. Smith Goes to Washington premiered. Most of the U.S. Senate and nearly half of the House attended the gala showing. Many congresspeople, much like Becca Balint today, were unamused. Time reported in 1939:
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“Next day there was a great rubbing of sore heads on Capitol Hill. Senators charged the picture lowered the Senate’s dignity. Three Senators (who declined to be quoted) upheld Senatorial dignity with these pungent comments on the film: “Not all Senators are sons of bitches.” “Punk!” “It stinks!”
….Said Senator Norris: “….The movies had a chance to do a good job, but they have given the public only a false, absurd impression.”
That is Becca Balint’s anti-AI argument now — that the public will be deceived by satire that she deems diminishes her Scrappy Little Dignity.
A Scrappy Little Indictment?
No one with half a logical brain can reasonably believe the subject video actually depicts Balint, let alone that it is not satire. Hank Poitras has sued the state of Vermont for this blatant left-wing infringement on conservative Vermonters’ rights of political speech. The very fact that Clark investigated this video is an indictment of the statute’s vagueness and facial unconstitutionality. Vermont authorities must not be allowed to chill political voices, most especially satirical attempts to expose the fraud and lies being spewed by progressive socialists like Becca Balint.
Becca Balint and Charity Clark have hypocritically indicted themselves. Poitras will win his challenge, preserving the political liberties that Americans have long enjoyed despite persistent Democratic efforts to punish “misinformation” while spewing it endlessly themselves.
Author and attorney John Klar raises grass-fed beef in Vermont. His Substack is called Small Farm Republic. John is a staff writer at Liberty Nation News and a contributor to The MAHA Report on Substack. John’s recent book is titled The Coming Food Crisis: How Corporations, Activists, and Climate Alarmists Are Waging War on Farmers
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Image: Hank Poitras