American Republicans have spent much of the last decade trying to reclaim free speech – protected in the USA by the First Amendment – as a right wing issue, not least by claiming their own freedom of speech was under relentless attack.
These attacks took on all sorts of nebulous forms, usually requiring indirect or nefarious actions. Conservative voices said they were “shadow-banned” – meaning the reach of their posts was restricted, even though they could still post – on social networks, then claimed this was at the behest of the White House.
Others connected the decision of Facebook and Twitter to briefly restrict sharing of the New York Post’s story on Hunter Biden’s laptop as censorship, or claimed the White House had been working to demand censorship behind the scenes. Campus protests which led to speakers being disinvited or events being cancelled were held up as proof of a concerted war on free speech.
The issue had become so charged by the time of Donald Trump’s re-election that Trump, his vice president JD Vance, and other senior administration officials pledged to extend their battle for free speech beyond the borders of the US – with Vance even using his keynote at the Munich Security Conference to blast Europeans for their lack of commitment to freedom.
Debate on the limits of speech tends to be fraught, and European values differ somewhat from those of America. In the USA, only speech which is directly threatening or inciting harm can be restricted by the government (as private entities, social media companies can set their own standards). In Europe, where free speech is a protected right but is balanced against other rights, hate speech that doesn’t incite violence can be criminalised.
Similarly, the point at which the White House engaging with social networks over their moderation policies crosses over from the government exerting its own First Amendment rights – making its own argument, which the tech companies can listen to or ignore – to exerting subtle pressure to censor via the back door is not a clear one. These are open and legitimate debates in a civilised society.
So, naturally, none of these are happening. Instead, in the few short months of the second Trump administration, the acutely-tuned radar Republicans had developed to detect potential infractions against free speech rights appears to have broken entirely.
The Trump administration is menacing television channels and tech companies alike into settling private legal cases with the president. It is coming to “settlement agreements” with major law firms who have represented clients or causes the president doesn’t like.
It is pulling billions in funding from universities – funding provided to fund scientific research – in a bid to force those institutions to limit the speech of their students and faculties, especially on the issue of Israel and Gaza. Trump’s administration unlawfully defunded Radio Free Europe, Asia, Voice of America and other international broadcasting outlets because the president didn’t like their output.
It goes well beyond matters of funding: Trump’s team are threatening the liberty of those who say things they dislike. The president’s White House advisors have threatened people advocating for people wrongfully deported to maximum security jails in El Salvador with charges for “aiding and abetting” terrorists. Trump has already openly weaponised his Department of Justice against his political enemies.
And in perhaps his most blatant and egregious assault on the First Amendment yet, Trump took to Truth Social to order the chair of the Federal Communications Commission – which oversees the technical regulation of broadcasting – to strip CBS of their broadcasting licence, because of his personal legal dispute with its news programme 60 Minutes. Brendan Carr, Trump’s FCC chair, has subsequently threatened other broadcast networks, too.
Violations of the First Amendment don’t come any more obvious than this, but entirely unsurprisingly there has been not the slightest peep of protest from Congressional Republicans, nor Fox News, nor the online outriders who endlessly billed themselves as free speech champions while Democrats were in power.
Anyone can expect or demand the freedom to say and hear views they personally find agreeable. It is the most comfortable and unchallenging of opinions to hold, to the extent that it is the junk food of politics – entirely bereft of actual value, however much space it takes up.
For all that it has become a cliché, free speech is only a sincerely-held value when you fight for it for those with whom you disagree – sometimes vociferously. The hollowness of the American right becomes visible in seconds when viewed in this way: people who filled hours of airtime – whether on TV, YouTube, or podcasts – breaking down every detail of Democrats’ supposed assault on free speech now say nothing.
Each one shows themselves up as a grifter, only leaving it open to debate what sort of grifter they are – are they a partisan hack who will defend whatever their own side does? Or are they in it for the money and unwilling to challenge their audience even slightly? Whichever it is, they have lost any claim to care about either the issue, or about the US constitution. They are hollow men indeed.
Trump is assaulting the American constitution from almost every angle at once. He is taking powers for himself that the constitution says belong with Congress. He is openly defying the judiciary. He is trying to contradict the very clear constitutional definition of who is or isn’t a US citizen. And this is not even a complete list.
The assault on the First Amendment, though, has the benefit of being extremely obvious, easy to explain, and a value which Trump and his party claim to care about. If people will not speak up on this issue, there is no hope whatsoever of them ever challenging the president on the others.
The Trump presidency could be existential for the US constitution, the document which his party of loudly profess to adore and vow to defend. The First Amendment is fundamental to the defence of the rest, and is the one most obviously being violated.
Their silence on it is deafening. Soon, that silence may be enforced.
