Conservatives can say what they want, and everyone else can say what conservatives want

Adam Serwer summarizes where we are on free speech now:

It is one thing for Trump loyalists like Carr to make threats. It is another for the targets of the threats to capitulate. In the early months of the second Trump administration, we have discovered that many American corporations, including companies that own media outlets, are ready to surrender their First Amendment rights as soon as Trump indicates the slightest displeasure with their politics. Whether they are capitulating because of fear or because they see a financial interest in aligning with the administration is ultimately irrelevant. Their rapid surrender to state coercion points to the absolute rot in these elite echelons, filled with people whose commitment to fundamental rights like free speech is utterly superficial.

As we discussed yesterday this is a critical point — we’re in a major crisis not only because the government is issuing lawless threats but because institutions are simply buckling under without a fight for whatever combination of cowardice and ideological sympathy.

Appearing on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show last night, Carr clarified that not only was Kimmel targeted for violating conservative sensibilities, but that others might also be subject to similar punishment. “They went from going for applause, from laugh lines to applause lines. They went from being court jesters that would make fun of everybody in power to being court clerics and enforcing a very narrow political ideology,” Carr told Hannity. “Enforcing a narrow political ideology” is of course exactly what Carr is doing—a government official using state power given to him by the people to silence political expression disfavored by the president of the United States. The purpose, the very essence, of the First Amendment is the right to express oneself in ways others, but particularly those in power, might find distasteful. Those free-speech protections do not vanish because someone makes a mistake and angers the powerful.

[…]

As Carr’s comments make clear, the Trump administration does not subscribe to the theory that the Constitution protects speech opposed by people in power. For a long time, Republicans have adhered to a definition of free speech that could be simply summarized as: Conservatives can say what they want, and everyone else can say what conservatives want. That is now the policy of the Trump administration.

Vice President J. D. Vance, who guest-hosted Kirk’s show after his death, urged conservatives to snitch on any potential thought crimes: “When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out,” Vance said. “And hell, call their employer.” And conservatives have been doing just that, getting regular people fired from their jobs for celebrating Kirk’s death, or in some cases, for condemning his killing while also criticizing his views. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who previously styled himself a champion of free speech, has been using his account on X to demand the expulsion of a student for speech he finds offensive and to celebrate the arrest of another. The Pentagon has forbidden any criticism of Kirk from Department of Defense employees, while Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that “there’s free speech and then there’s hate speech,” a distinction the Constitution does not recognize, precisely because it would give the authorities too much power to dictate what views are acceptable.

It’s remarkable how quickly we went from “hate speech is free speech” (one of the few beliefs Kirk and I actually shared) to effectively having a blasphemy law. Nor will mere silence protect you—people have been attacked for committing the thought crime of failing to mourn Kirk publicly, NFL teams criticized for declining to hold a moment of silence, and businesses singled out for not lowering the flag to half-staff in his honor. The Trump-sympathizing Free Press castigated the Emmys for failing to honor Kirk. The self-styled “free-speech absolutist” and Trump-backing billionaire Elon Musk, who owns the social-media platform X, has called for deplatforming, firing, and even imprisoning critics of Kirk.

You would like to think that prominent media organizations that aren’t regime-aligned would be incentivized to recognize the magnitude of thus threat and communicate it, but:

The same week he sues the NY Times for $15 billion… *this* is the headline the NY Times goes with?

[image or embed]— Mike Masnick (@mmasnick.bsky.social) Sep 18, 2025 at 12:53 PM

Here’s Trump showing off his “toolbox” again:

Trump: "When you have a network, and you have evening shows, and all they do is hit Trump… They're not allowed to do that."

[image or embed]— Adam Schwarz (@adamjschwarz.bsky.social) Sep 18, 2025 at 1:18 PM

People with barely veiled admiration for strongmen even when they’re current targets is a significant part of the problem.