Although such crucial freedoms as free speech, free assembly, and a free press are cheap to provide, autocrats avoid them like the plague. Democratic leaders no doubt wish they could avoid these freedoms, since it is these public goods that make it easy for opponents to organize to overthrow them. But those who depend on a large coalition can’t escape them because they cannot amass a winning coalition without guaranteeing large numbers of people the right to say, read, and write what they want, and to come together to discuss and debate at will. And then democrats must listen and deliver what
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