Trump wants the FCC to revoke CBS's license. This is a dark omen | Dennis Aftergut and Austin Sarat

DDonald Trump's Oct. 10 attack on CBS over its editing of his 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris — a standard television occurrence — is a mere distraction. It's meant to divert our attention from the fact that he was afraid to give the newsmagazine his traditional interview with both political candidates. Trump's statement that the Federal Communications Commission should “take away” the attack on CBS' broadcast licenses betrays his ignorance of the fact that the FCC does not license broadcasters and heralds a full-scale attack on free speech and freedom of the press if he becomes president.

History clearly shows that dictators take control of the media early on in order to censor information unfavorable to their people. Our security requires the prevention of this control, as Thomas Jefferson wrote two centuries ago: “The only security for all lies in a free press.” The power of public opinion cannot be resisted if it is allowed to express it freely.”

Only Rumplestilskin wouldn't understand how Trump cannot tolerate criticism from the press or anyone else. The attack on the mainstream media is his way of desensitizing us to the important role of the press in a free society.

If you want a preview of how the First Amendment will disappear if Trump is elected president, look to his home state of Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis, his MAGA copycat, is running the government in a way that Trump likes to do the whole thing would bring the nation closer. On October 9th, we saw one of the governor's minions attempt to abolish freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and reproductive rights.

John Wilson, the general counsel for the state Department of Health, threatened the state's broadcasters with criminal prosecution unless they removed a campaign ad promoting Amendment 4. This is the ballot measure that seeks to add abortion rights to the state constitution.

The Amendment 4 ad featured Caroline Williams of Florida saying that if the state's six-week abortion ban had been in effect when her health conditions required it in 2022, she would be dead. The irony of the Florida government's attempt to repeal the ad is great. Here we are dealing with a naked attempt at censorship on the part of the party that claims to oppose “cancel culture.”

But that's not the end of the irony. The Department of Health letter claimed that promoting Amendment 4 violated the state's “sanitary nuisance” law. This reason for government censorship, based on a law intended to ban overflowing septic tanks or unclean slaughterhouses, does not pass the laugh test, let alone the Constitution.

Still, you shouldn't miss what's going on here: people's rights are not being abolished all at once, but gradually. The first stage is to undermine people's expectations that freedoms are sacred and respected. By making us believe that we can live with this or that small intrusion on the rights of others, autocrats normalize these intrusions and then extend them to all of us. Dictatorships arise by restricting the right of the media and the public to criticize a leader.

That's why American law, at least as it stands now, prohibits what Wilson threatened. Campaign ads are key political statements entitled to the highest level of First Amendment protection. This means that content-based restrictions on such speech must advance a compelling government interest and represent the least intrusive means of advancing that interest. In particular, even false statements related to abortion law campaigns – and Ms. Williams' statements in the ad were not false – must withstand such strict scrutiny.

Tears of a Florida Crocodile would be more compelling than Wilson's description of Florida's interest in protecting women from the alleged “danger” of the ad – that it suggests they must go to other states or find unlicensed abortionists if they can't find one there Having access to an abortion in Florida. This danger arises from the law, not from the advertisement.

If the Ministry of Public Health cares so much about women's safety, why not issue a regulation making it clear that doctors will not be prosecuted if they use their professional judgment to believe that a woman “has pregnancy complications that pose a serious risk of death or significant risk of irreversible physical impairment?”

Without that assurance, a doctor's decision to perform an emergency abortion is so settled that there is virtually no exception to Florida's six-week ban. Interviews with Florida doctors show they are understandably unwilling to risk their freedom at the prospect of a district attorney questioning their judgment.

But whatever the ban's impact on the practice of medicine, Wilson and DeSantis' attempt to stop groups from making their case puts us all at risk.

George Washington recognized this danger at the beginning of the Republic. As he put it: “Freedom of speech could be taken away – and in silence we could be led like sheep to the slaughter.” Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are sending us a clear message, 250 years later, that our lives and our freedoms are on the ballot .

• Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor and currently an advisor to Lawyers Defending American Democracy

• Austin Sarat, associate dean of the faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law and Political Science at Amherst College, is the author of Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America's Death Penalty