President-Elect Donald Trump will be officially inaugurated this Friday, January 20. You know what to expect: The Oath of Office, “Hail to the Chief,” possible prayers and poems… and angry protestors. With an approval rating of 40% according to CNN, Trump will enter the White House with the lowest approval ratings in history. Despite it being two months since Hilary Clinton conceded the election to Trump, many people are still going around the streets, expressing their anger towards the President-Elect for his radical policies against immigration and foreign trade, among other beliefs. However, these people are being silenced or cut out of the media, leading to a multitude of scenarios.

As an example, Vice President-elect Mike Pence saw Hamilton on Broadway shortly after Trump won the election, and the cast infamously greeted the former at the end of the production, leading to angry tweets from Trump regarding their “very rude behavior,” demanding apologies as well. Trump made similar approaches in regards to the Saturday Night Live skits about him. Although not explicit, these are signs of a potentially oppressive regime akin to Stalin, who heavily censored music, goods, and the press. Furthermore, other groups have silenced anti-Trump supporters like Salem State University, which hid artwork behind walls, and Liberty University, whose Anti-Trump column in the newspaper: The Liberty Champion, was censored by President Jerry Falwell Jr.

However, the censorship is two-sided. Most notably, Reddit has cracked down on /r/the_donald, a page for Trump supporters, by removing it from /r/all: the top posts page on Reddit. Some of the users were deemed “Toxic” by the CEO: Steve Huffman, and are subject to warnings and/or bans from the site. This has caused outrage upon Reddit users, who question whether /r/the_donald should be banned entirely for breaking rules, or if /r/the_donald is just an opinion page that doesn’t violate Reddit rules. In addition, when Trump was still running for president, sites like Facebook and Twitter also took small matters into their own hands in regards to some pro-Trump posts.

Nevertheless, censorship remains a significant part of Trump’s path towards the White House. Democrats simply refuse to attend the inauguration as opposed to coming in and protesting, as they know they could be silenced. We will unfortunately be seeing more censorship on that day….