The New York Times accused Trump of wielding some ugly free speech to bury the First Amendment rights of others.
“Trump and his aides tell … a false [story]. They claim that political violence comes mostly from the left. … In fact, multiple data sources show that neither side has a monopoly on political violence, but it is more likely to come from the right,” the Times reported Friday.
“Between 2015 and 2024, 54 percent of ideologically connected killings were committed by people on the far right, according to the Anti-Defamation League. By comparison, 8 percent came from the political left.”
“We are horrified by the killing of [MAGA influencer Charlie] Kirk, and we mourn his death,” the Times reports. However, as stated by former vice president Mike Pence: “there was one person responsible for Charlie Kirk’s assassination.”
That doesn’t appear to stop Trump from using Kirk’s death to crackdown on “hateful” free speech with which he disagrees, while his speech remains free and thoroughly hateful, the Times wrote.
“After the attack at [former Speaker Nancy] Pelosi’s home, which included a brutal assault of her husband, Paul, Mr. Trump himself and other prominent Republicans mocked the victim and spread absurd conspiracies that the episode was staged. After the shooting of two Democratic legislators and their spouses in Minnesota, Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, bizarrely blamed 'Marxists,' while Laura Loomer, an influential Trump confidante, falsely blamed 'goons' working for Gov. Tim Walz, the Minnesota Democrat.”
These are terrible things to say, but they are not crimes, said the Times, “and they are certainly not grounds for a government crackdown against conservative groups." The editorial urged Trump and his aides “to remember the free-speech criticisms that they and other conservatives have often made of progressives over the past decade.”
“In his Inaugural Address in January, Mr. Trump promised to ‘bring back free speech to America.’ [Vice President JD] Vance, while speaking in Munich in February, excoriated European countries for restricting speech and promised, ‘Under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree,’” the Times recalled.
But instead of living up to these principles, the Trump administration and its allies are attempting to restrict speech in ways that are more extreme than anything Democrats have done.
If Trump refuses to stand up for “the basic American right to disagree without fear of oppression, others still can,” said the Times, and it urged the Supreme Court to jettison Trump’s upcoming executive order targeting left-leaning organizations as “clearly unconstitutional.”
“The ability to disagree with other people on raw, difficult issues, without fear of repression, is the essence of American freedom.”
Read the New York Times report at this link.
