Conservatives are not just currently celebrating Trump’s victory, but finding themselves drowning in the sudden flood of leftist tears. However good the schadenfreude might feel, we should realize that it isn’t the leftists themselves acting out in lamentation, but the totalitarian propaganda working through them.

Indeed, when we see college students and their professors sucking their thumbs and bundling up with their safety blankets in designated “coping spaces,” we shouldn’t point and laugh (at least not too loudly). We should say to ourselves, “There, but for the grace of God and His instrument Elon Musk, go I.”

One cannot overstate just how much influence the corporate press has over the majority of leftists. It’s less a bubble, and more a multi-layered, multi-dimensional, bomb-proof echo chamber that completely warps the reality of the person trapped in it. Perhaps it feels like a transparent and burstable bubble at first, but for so many leftists, it has morphed into a prison cell from which there is no escape. It’s like Orwell’s “double-think” in 1984, but more subtle and deep-seated.

This kind of mental illness should elicit more pity than revenge from conservatives, who, for all that they have suffered otherwise, have never been brainwashed like this. Free speech has always been a key feature of all the many strains of conservatism; opposing free speech is now the central principle of all the many strains of progressivism. Whether it’s establishing a welfare state, imposing an intersectional hierarchy, or dissolving all borders and traditions, it is necessarily predicated on controlling the flow of information and eliminating dissent.

Fortunately, now that Trump and the MAGA movement have won, they can dismantle this vast propaganda leviathan. Republican legislators can outlaw online censorship and break up Big Tech monopolies. They can also challenge the absurd legal protections that allow news outlets to spreading outright falsehoods without any accountability. And if nothing else, they can defund NPR and PBS (sorry, Big Bird) and the array of NGOs and government organizations that target conservative voices.

Outside of legislation, the executive agencies should stop pressuring social media platforms and search engines to amplify and erase content. No longer would Google, YouTube or Facebook be secretly compelled to hide the content of conservative influencers and conservative publications. Rather, they could return to their original mission of giving a platform to all voices and making money.

This might not end the all the abuses of the leftist corporate media, but it would go a long way to bring balance to public discourse and reduce political polarization. As it stands, producers of conservative news media are at a disadvantage because their reach is limited. While most American consumers of media scroll through social media or use Apple or Google for news and commentary, conservative consumers are forced to go to their preferred publications directly and subscribe.

By default, this double-standard grants automatic legitimacy to media outlets that are grossly biased, inaccurate, and of substandard quality, and casts into doubt rival media outlets that are more objective, follow proper journalistic conventions, and have a wealth of talent.

True, some might protest that removing the advantages enjoyed by corporate media may lead to many more outlets shutting down, but a level playing field would also force the ones who survive to improve their product and rethink the way they operate (i.e. stop being biased, inaccurate, and unreadable). Everyone who complains about the dumbing down of public discourse, the rise of demagogues, and the coarsening of the culture could finally see serious reform in these areas of modern life.

Would this lead to some loud clashing of ideas and the explosive revelation of uncomfortable truths? Of course, but is far better than cultivating a delusional progressive minority of Americans unable to cope with reality, and a majority of conservative Americans feeling their way through an unchecked cacophony of alternative media.

By cleaning up today’s media, Trump and the Republicans can restore order to today’s politics and bring real healing to the culture. For the time being, we should do our best to understand and forgive leftists who are going through a crisis that is quite real for them. But after that, we need to help them out of their situation by expanding their access to different opinions, holding journalists accountable, and end the gaslighting once and for all.