Free Speech Has Always Been a Lie

The conservatives cashed in another chip this week following the death of glorified Internet troll Charlie Kirk, when MAGA keyboard warriors campaigned against teachers who dared to say literally anything about Kirk following his assassination, and the Trump administration briefly attempted to strongarm Disney into cancelling Jimmy Kimmel before the public erupted in outrage.

What's interesting about this whole episode, on top of the speed and violence with which the Right has attempted to pin Kirk's death on the Democrats for their own political ambitions, is how it exposed the fact that not only did Charlie Kirk not care at all about "free speech," but also that conservatives have never cared about free speech. Ever. Hannah Arendt wrote about this very fact in The Origins of Totalitarianism, in which she describes how the Right uses free speech merely to create a space for them to disseminate their abhorrent ideology, and as soon as they gain some control over society, they will work to trample upon everyone else's rights.

This is exactly what has happened. "Free speech" has only ever been invoked by conservatives in order to assert their "right" to say things that are contrary to the Constitutional order and things that advance white supremacist and misogynist ideologies. They have never--not once--ever invoked "free speech" in order to defend whistleblowers, civil rights advocates, or challenging artwork.

 Conservatives' support of free speech has always been a lie, and the first time this lie has been exposed was during GamerGate, which still informs the tactics used by the MAGA mob in order to terrorize and harass its opponents. GamerGate was ostensibly about "ethics in games journalism," but it was actually a revenge campaign waged by a jealous ex boyfriend whose former lover worked as a games journalist, and expanded into a campaign of harassment against women and LGBTQ minorities in video games and tech generally. Charlie Kirk's death and the Trump administration's anti-DEI push are more of the same.

 What's equally important to understand is that the public performance of mourning over Charlie Kirk isn't real; it is merely a spectacle intended to establish Kirk as a martyr for the fascist cause; that is the real goal, and the outrage over people mocking his death--well deserved, if you ever heard or read what he said--is just as much of an act as Abigail Williams in church.