On the first day of his administration, Trump signed the executive order entitled “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship” The order criticizes the Biden regime for its censorship of online speech and its war on dis, mis, and malinformation, and it states that “Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society.”[i] Since this day and decree, the Trump regime has violated the First Amendment in numerous ways, from cracking down on universities who refuse to comply with the fight against alleged antisemitism, attempting to deport green card holders and students for expressing anti-Israel political opinions, threatening law firms who represent clients critical of Trump, suing media organizations for publishing stories that lambast or shame him, including the Wall Street Journal, Paramount, and more recently, The New York Times and Penguin Books, his order that the Smithsonian Museum remove any exhibits that depict an “anti-American ideology”, his order that flag burning be a prosecutable offense, despite a 1989 Supreme Court ruling that concluded that flag burning is a speech act, and is thus protected by the First Amendment, and the newly redubbed Department of War has just announced that journalists will only be able to publish “approved information” (a Pentagon official must authorize a report before it is published, even if it contains unclassified information)[ii] Trump has consistently contradicted an early executive order that seemed promising.
Now, in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the Trump regime is doubling down on its approach to free speech. Trump himself responded to a question from ABC’s Jonathan Karl about his AG Pam Bondi’s remarks about hate speech by saying that, “She’ll probably go after people like you, because you treat me so unfairly. You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they will come after ABC. ABC paid me 16 million recently for a form of hate speech…maybe they will go after you.”[iii] Here Trump is referring to the 16-million-dollar settlement that Paramount paid him for his lawsuit against an episode of 60 Minutes where he accused the show of deceptive editing with the intention of hindering his chances in the 2024 election.[iv] It was not for any form of hate speech, which does not even exist in America.
On the other hand, it is darkly amusing that the same cretins in the illiberal liberal class who cheered the censorship of people who questioned the narrative on COVID-19, Trump, Alex Jones, Daivd Icke, the New York Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden in the 2020 election, RT, Sputnik, screeched like Banshees about Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter/X and his promise to restore transparency and freedom to the platform, and have called for limits on hate speech and mis and disinformation, to now be heroic defenders of free speech. Contrary to what these people say, and what people on the right say about cancel culture being justified because ‘the Left’ did it first, the First Amendment and freedom of speech should be defended because it is a higher principle. It is a foundational ideal whose survival should not rely on a regime in power.
It is when a faction is in power when their commitment to principles like free speech is truly tested. By now it is evident that the Trump regime is not the antidote for federal censorship that it promised to be. This was recently illustrated by ABC’s decision to drop Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show amid pressure from the FCC, chaired by Brendan Carr, who authored the essay on the FCC in Project 2025. Kimmel’s show, like most late night ‘comedy’ shows, was already tanking and was on its way out soon anyways, but the FCC’s overt pressure on Nexstar, an ABC affiliate, who needs to be in the FCC’s good graces as it is attempting a big merger, only further exposes the Trump regime’s disdain for free speech and criticism.[v] Further, the conservative movement does not value freedom of expression, or to be more specific, they do not share the same conception of freedom of speech or expression that liberal thinkers have. For example, William Buckley, considered the father of modern American conservatism, said in an argument over Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare with Leo Cherne that “I don’t want the society to be open to certain ideas. I am an epistemological optimist. That is the unfortunate term they used to describe people who believe that by reason you can make certain exclusions, and those exclusions don’t have to be reconsidered.”[vi] This echoes a point by G. K. Chesterton, who writes in his memoir detailing his religious journey, Orthodoxy, that “There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped.”[vii] It is gravely mistaken to believe that Trump and the conservative movement value freedom of speech and that it rejects cancel culture. We should resist this crusade because it is right to do so, not because when a different political faction gets into power, they will wield the same weapons. It does not matter who is trampling freedoms, as there is a higher principle, freedom of speech and expression, at stake.
In February, Christopher Rufo wrote an article for the Manhattan Institute declaring that the right must rewrite the rules of cancel culture and create a society that is more open to conservative ideas. This is a rejection of the idea that the right must “cancel cancel culture”, and he writes that “The reality is that one cannot cancel cancel culture. Rules of etiquette, propriety, and acceptability will always exist; people who violate a society’s core taboos will always risk exclusion. In other words, all cultures cancel. The question is, for what, and by whom.”[viii] While he is correct in a sense that all cultures have standards for what ideas are distasteful or more acceptable, the danger is in who is tasked with setting the taboos. If it is up to the religious right, then the taboos, and the rules of propriety and acceptability will be broadened to first banish pornography, then any media or content deemed pornographic or overly sexualized and graphically violent. Ideas that the right sees as subversive and obscene, like communism and Marxism, will be eradicated and anyone who appears to be even sympathetic to these ideologies will be tarnished or persecuted.
It may be true that all cultures cancel, but surely the goal must be to keep the range of debatable ideas as broad as possible. To determine some ideas as so fatal or inhumane that they are beyond reproach and debate is mistaken for two main reasons. Firstly, believers in those banished ideologies will never be totally silenced. They will move underground and amass followers, boosted by the martyrdom that comes with being censored by the ruling class. Secondly, if we allow some ideas and their advocates to be exiled, we deny ourselves the opportunity to hear differing views, however grotesque they may be. John Stuart Mill makes this point when he notes the importance of allowing dissenting views because they may contain a grain of truth that is absent from more widely accepted narratives. Mill writes that “To refuse a hearing to an opinion because they are sure it is false is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty.”[ix] This applies to flat earthers, creationists, even to holocaust deniers. When we prosecute and silence fringe, abhorrent views, we may feel righteous, but we are only hindering our ability to hear opposing views. We become more sensitive to them, and we become unable to contest them and to affirm why they are wrong and horrid. People with disgusting views will always exist. We cannot fire or prosecute them out of existence. We must expose ourselves to a vast range of ideas, not a select few. Rufo is revealing the reality of the right’s stance on free speech. They do not seek to recommit. They desire the supremacy of their ideas, and the imposition of their moral standards.
Following the shooting of Charlie Kirk, we have seen an unsettling and tyrannical assault on freedom of expression by the Trump regime and the right. An alarming example of this was the network ABC dropping Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night comedy show at the behest of FCC commissioner Brendan Carr and Trump. Kimmel made a distasteful joke about Kirk’s shooter and what led to his assassination. He has since been reinstated, and he made a tearful apology for his remarks. Trump reacted to Kimmel’s reinstatement on Truth Social with outrage, threatening ABC with legal action.[x] JD Vance hosted Kirk’s podcast and said that if anyone sees people mocking Kirk’s death, they should get them fired.[xi] These examples are the federal government exerting pressure on private companies and employers to punish citizens over speech. Now Republicans are openly parroting the same arguments that the illiberal liberal class makes about cancelations and censorship, like that it’s not cancel culture, it’s accountability or consequence culture, hate speech is not free speech, and the notion that a nebulous, totalizing they killed Kirk, not just Tyler Robinson, the entire ‘Left’, the Democratic party. Senator Cynthia Lummis told the magazine Semafor that her feelings on the First Amendment being an “ultimate right” have changed in the wake of Kirk’s shooting, and she said “We just can’t let people call each other those kinds of insane things and then be surprised when politicians get shot and the death threats they are receiving and then trying to get extra money for security,”[xii] Lummis was extremely critical of the Biden regime’s attempts to have certain posts on social media flagged and removed.[xiii] On September 16th, Stephen Miller, a longtime advisor to and crony of Trump, said on X that “The path forward is not to mimic the ACLU of the mid 90’s. It is to take all necessary and rational steps to save Western civilization.”[xiv] The ends justify the means. The new cancel culture is done in the name of saving Western civilization, while the other cancel culture is bent on destroying it. This is disgusting. Just like free speech warriors like Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, and even Trump himself, who on his first day on office signed an executive order that sought to end censorship by the federal government, flipped on the issue of Israel and what they see as rising rampant antisemitism, most have again flipped on the issue of Kirk and what is acceptable speech in relation to his assassination. While many have reacted with disgust to AG Pam Bondi and Trump’s remarks about the difference between hate speech and free speech, notably Senator Ted Cruz and Matt Walsh at the Daily Wire, among others, the Trump regime sees an opportunity to crackdown on its opposition. Trump has just signed a decree that declares Antifa a terrorist organization.[xv] Aside from the legality of such a declaration being at best, questionable, as such designation is reserved for foreign, not domestic entities, Antifa has no coherent or concrete hierarchy or leadership. Thus, it is debateable whether it can even be considered a group at all.
The issue was never cancel culture or clamping down on freedom of speech, it was an issue of direction, and the Trump regime, like the illiberal liberal class, has a Manichean view of American politics. They believe they are locked in an existential war with demonic forces of evil. Trump captured this in his speech at Kirk’s memorial service when he said, “No side in American politics has a monopoly on disturbed or misguided people, but there’s one part of our political community which believes they have a monopoly on truth, goodness and virtue, and concludes they have also a monopoly on power, thought and speech. Well, that’s not happening anymore,”[xvi] In referring to what he calls “the radical left lunatics”, Trump is unwittingly referring to himself and his acolytes, as evidenced in Miller’s tweet about saving Western civilization, as they feel that they have a monopoly on truth and virtue. This is projection. Numerous speeches at Kirk’s memorial service exemplified how his death will be used by the religious right. There was a contrast between most of the speakers remarks with those of Kirk’s wife, Erika, who said that “The answer to hate is not hate… “The answer we know from the Gospel is love, and always love. Love for our enemies, and love for those who persecute us.”[xvii] In complete contrast, Trump said, “I hate my opponents. I don’t want what’s best for them.” Miller’s speech bolstered this desire for revenge and retaliation, and he said of ‘them’, “You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness, you are jealousy, you are envy, you are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing. We are the ones who build. We are the ones who create. We are the ones who lift up humanity.”[xviii] The referents here are obvious, you are the “radical left lunatics”, and we are the good and virtuous conservatives. It is interesting that a movement led by a longtime socially liberal, greedy, ignorant philanderer is claiming the mantle of profound goodness. On creation and building, plenty of artwork, literature, architecture and other works have been developed by non-conservatives. To Miller and the religious right, anyone who is not on their ‘side’ is a part of the demonic faction of secular humanism, they are nothing but envious, jealous, hateful heathen. This manner of rhetoric is incredibly dangerous.
Many on the religious right believes in demons, possession, and Satan, and transgenderism, atheism, and astrology are often seen as demonic. The podcaster Megyn Kelly reported that a feminist website, Jezebel, published an article in which the author paid witches on the online marketplace Etsy to put a curse on Kirk two days before he was assassinated. Jezebel has since removed the article from their website. Kelly said in her monologue about the article that “There are actually demons in the world. Calling up the spirit world in particular the Devil’s spirit world can actually have real world consequences. It’s not something to mess with. Many Christians believe this.”[xix] This magical thinking, that angels and demons are real entities that can impact the material world, is insidious and is part of an ideology that is rooted in desperation and rage. The religious right creates a fantasy world where people can escape to, and where they can blame their woes not on the ruling class that has ostracized them and disposed of them like rubbish, but on an Other. As Chris Hedges argues, “The split in America, rather than simply economic, is between those who embrace reason, who function in the real world of cause and effect, and those who, numbed by isolation and despair, now seek meaning in a mythical world of intuition, a world that is no longer reality-based, a world of magic.”[xx] Whatever the delusions of the illiberal liberal class, from critical race theory to transgenderism, the right is immersed in its own series of magical ideas, from demonic possession to the dangers of witchcraft and the occult. Through its martyrdom of Kirk and the use of his death as the ignition of a holy war, the Trump regime has outed themselves as illiberal- they are the illiberal class, not a contrast to the illiberal liberal class, but a counterpart.
[i] The White House. “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship – the White House.” The White House. The White House, January 20, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-freedom-of-speech-and-ending-federal-censorship/.
[ii] Collins, Ronald K. L. “‘Executive Watch’: The Breadth and Depth of the Trump Administration’s Threat to the First Amendment — First Amendment News 465.” The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, April 9, 2025. https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/ronald-kl-collins-first-amendment-news/executive-watch-breadth-and-depth-trump., Press, The Associated. “Timeline: Trump’s Fights with Media, Including Jimmy Kimmel.” AP News, September 18, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/kimmel-trump-media-lawsuits-newspapers-d48448bd0d940e87c4dbeefcda5699fb., and The White House. “Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag.” The White House, August 25, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/08/prosecuting-burning-of-the-american-flag/.
[iii] Tamasco, Marc. “Trump Rips into ABC Reporter after Being Asked about Pam Bondi’s ‘Hate Speech’ Remarks.” Fox News, September 17, 2025. https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-slams-abc-news-jon-karl-after-he-questions-him-pam-bondis-hate-speech-comments.
[iv] Fallow, Katie. “Paramount’s Trump Lawsuit Settlement: Curtain Call for the First Amendment?” Knight First Amendment Institute, June 9, 2025. https://knightcolumbia.org/blog/paramounts-trump-lawsuit-settlement-curtain-call-for-the-first-amendment.
[v] Hendel, John. “‘It’s the Threats That Are the Point’: How Brendan Carr Exerts His FCC Power.” POLITICO. Politico, September 27, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/27/brendan-carr-kimmel-fcc-00583301.
[vi] Buckley, William F., and Leo Cherne. “Civil Discourse: The Cold War on Firing Line.” Hoover.org, 2018. https://histories.hoover.org/civil-discourse/cold-war/.
[vii] Chesterton, G.K. Orthodoxy. Hendrickson Publishers, 2006.
[viii] Rufo, Christopher F. “The Right Is Changing Cancel Culture’s Rules.” City Journal, February 25, 2025. https://www.city-journal.org/article/cancel-culture-conservatives-social-trump.
[ix] Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. London: J. W. Parker and Son, 1859.
[x] Crane, Emily. “Trump Threatens to Sue ABC over Jimmy Kimmel’s Sudden Return to Air: ‘a True Bunch of Losers!’” New York Post, September 24, 2025. https://nypost.com/2025/09/24/us-news/trump-threatens-to-sue-abc-over-jimmy-kimmels-sudden-return-to-air-a-true-bunch-of-losers/.
[xi] The National Desk, and JD Vance. “Vice President JD Vance Hosts the Charlie Kirk Show.” YouTube, September 16, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJbPv5XmIpw.
[xii] Everett, Burgess. “Kimmel’s Suspension Prompts Free-Speech Republicans to Reconsider Their Boundaries.” Semafor.com, September 18, 2025. https://www.semafor.com/article/09/18/2025/kimmels-suspension-prompts-free-speech-republicans-to-reconsider-their-boundaries.
[xiii] Senator Cynthia Lummis. “Lummis Fights Back against the Biden Administration’s Efforts to Police Free Speech in Wyoming» Senator Cynthia Lummis.” Senator Cynthia Lummis, July 21, 2023. https://www.lummis.senate.gov/press-releases/lummis-fights-back-against-the-biden-administrations-efforts-to-police-free-speech-in-wyoming/.
[xiv] Miller, Stephen. “Tweet.” X (formerly Twitter), September 16, 2025. https://x.com/StephenM/status/1967940333309923754?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet.
[xv] The White House. “Designating Antifa as a Domestic Terrorist Organization.” The White House, September 22, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/designating-antifa-as-a-domestic-terrorist-organization/.
[xvi] FOX 5 New York, and Donald Trump. “FULL: Trump’s Remarks at Charlie Kirk’s Funeral.” YouTube, September 21, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-AM2EHClIY.
[xvii] C-SPAN, and Erika Kirk. “Erika Kirk Complete Remarks at Husband’s Memorial Service.” YouTube, September 21, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD22S3sHFCA.
[xviii] McCoy, Robert. “Stephen Miller’s Charlie Kirk Tribute Was as Sinister as It Gets.” The New Republic, September 22, 2025. https://newrepublic.com/post/200727/stephen-miller-charlie-kirk-tribute.
[xix] Megyn Kelly. “Megyn Kelly Reveals Erika Kirk Was Shaken by Jezebel’s Article about Placing a CURSE on Charlie Kirk.” YouTube, September 23, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOkE0M2Wkjo.
[xx] Hedges, Chris. American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. London: Vintage, 2008.
References
Buckley, William F., and Leo Cherne. “Civil Discourse: The Cold War on Firing Line.” Hoover.org, 2018. https://histories.hoover.org/civil-discourse/cold-war/.
C-SPAN, and Erika Kirk. “Erika Kirk Complete Remarks at Husband’s Memorial Service.” YouTube, September 21, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD22S3sHFCA.
Chesterton, G.K. Orthodoxy. Hendrickson Publishers, 2006.
Collins, Ronald K. L. “‘Executive Watch’: The Breadth and Depth of the Trump Administration’s Threat to the First Amendment — First Amendment News 465.” The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, April 9, 2025. https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/ronald-kl-collins-first-amendment-news/executive-watch-breadth-and-depth-trump.
Crane, Emily. “Trump Threatens to Sue ABC over Jimmy Kimmel’s Sudden Return to Air: ‘a True Bunch of Losers!’” New York Post, September 24, 2025. https://nypost.com/2025/09/24/us-news/trump-threatens-to-sue-abc-over-jimmy-kimmels-sudden-return-to-air-a-true-bunch-of-losers/.
Everett, Burgess. “Kimmel’s Suspension Prompts Free-Speech Republicans to Reconsider Their Boundaries.” Semafor.com, September 18, 2025. https://www.semafor.com/article/09/18/2025/kimmels-suspension-prompts-free-speech-republicans-to-reconsider-their-boundaries.
Fallow, Katie. “Paramount’s Trump Lawsuit Settlement: Curtain Call for the First Amendment?” Knight First Amendment Institute, June 9, 2025. https://knightcolumbia.org/blog/paramounts-trump-lawsuit-settlement-curtain-call-for-the-first-amendment.
FOX 5 New York, and Donald Trump. “FULL: Trump’s Remarks at Charlie Kirk’s Funeral.” YouTube, September 21, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-AM2EHClIY.
Hedges, Chris. American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. London: Vintage, 2008.
Hendel, John. “‘It’s the Threats That Are the Point’: How Brendan Carr Exerts His FCC Power.” POLITICO. Politico, September 27, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/27/brendan-carr-kimmel-fcc-00583301.
McCoy, Robert. “Stephen Miller’s Charlie Kirk Tribute Was as Sinister as It Gets.” The New Republic, September 22, 2025. https://newrepublic.com/post/200727/stephen-miller-charlie-kirk-tribute.
Megyn Kelly. “Megyn Kelly Reveals Erika Kirk Was Shaken by Jezebel’s Article about Placing a CURSE on Charlie Kirk.” YouTube, September 23, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOkE0M2Wkjo.
Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. London: J. W. Parker and Son, 1859.
Miller, Stephen. “Tweet.” X (formerly Twitter), September 16, 2025. https://x.com/StephenM/status/1967940333309923754?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet.
Press, The Associated. “Timeline: Trump’s Fights with Media, Including Jimmy Kimmel.” AP News, September 18, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/kimmel-trump-media-lawsuits-newspapers-d48448bd0d940e87c4dbeefcda5699fb.
Rufo, Christopher F. “The Right Is Changing Cancel Culture’s Rules.” City Journal, February 25, 2025. https://www.city-journal.org/article/cancel-culture-conservatives-social-trump.
Senator Cynthia Lummis. “Lummis Fights Back against the Biden Administration’s Efforts to Police Free Speech in Wyoming» Senator Cynthia Lummis.” Senator Cynthia Lummis, July 21, 2023. https://www.lummis.senate.gov/press-releases/lummis-fights-back-against-the-biden-administrations-efforts-to-police-free-speech-in-wyoming/.
Tamasco, Marc. “Trump Rips into ABC Reporter after Being Asked about Pam Bondi’s ‘Hate Speech’ Remarks.” Fox News, September 17, 2025. https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-slams-abc-news-jon-karl-after-he-questions-him-pam-bondis-hate-speech-comments.
The National Desk, and JD Vance. “Vice President JD Vance Hosts the Charlie Kirk Show.” YouTube, September 16, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJbPv5XmIpw.
The White House. “Designating Antifa as a Domestic Terrorist Organization.” The White House, September 22, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/designating-antifa-as-a-domestic-terrorist-organization/.
———. “Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag.” The White House, August 25, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/08/prosecuting-burning-of-the-american-flag/.
———. “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship – the White House.” The White House. The White House, January 20, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-freedom-of-speech-and-ending-federal-censorship/.
Not Without Incident: Questioning Big Brother's Platitudes 
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