Explain is a weekly series that examines what the right is currently obsessed, how it influences politics – and why you should know.
The conservative movement spent the days following the shocking murder of right -wing activist Charlie Kirk to attack an American value: freedom of expression.
In the most publicized incident, the Federal Communications Commission has put pressure on ABC Parent The Walt Disney Company Company to the animator of Talk Show of touch Jimmy Kimmel After making a joke mocking President Donald Trump’s response to Kirk’s death. This followed CBS canceling “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” shortly after the network paid $ 16 million to President Donald Trump on how “60 minutes” published an interview with Kamala Harris.
Vice-president JD Vance and his main assistant from the White House Stephen Miller having argued That a repression against the left-central groups is necessary to prevent people from telling the truth about this a bigot theorist and conspiracy Kirk was.
And Fox News, the de facto media arm of the Republican Party, also joined the anti-amendment crusade.
“For all the concern concerning the” first amendment, the first amendment “, what about all the amendments that Charlie Kirk lost? Because Charlie Kirk has no amendments right now. said Fox Pundit And Trump’s former press secretary Kayleigh MCENANYshowing his lack of knowledge of the American Constitution which has served it so well for years.
The attack on the right against freedom of expression is not something new that has been caused by the death of Kirk. For decades, the conservative movement and the republican party have tried to remove the open expression.
For example, in 1983, the Reverend Jerry Falwell of the pro-Gop moral majority continued the magazine Hustler after he made fun of a parody announcement. In 1988, the Supreme Court governed in favor of the magazine And the owner Larry Flynt, unanimously deciding that the parody was protected by the first amendment.
In another sadly famous moment after the September 11 attacks, the press secretary of the house Busse Bush Ari Fleischer went after the actor Bill Maher for criticizing the American response to terrorism.
Fleischer told journalists that people “need to look at what they say, to look at what they do”, adding: “It’s not a moment for remarks like that; there is never any.”
The Patriot Act, which was adopted by the Congress and signed by President George W. Bush following attacks, was used to suppress the speech. Librarians were served by gag And government officers have said they did not speak, using national security allegations to justify censorship.
More recently, Florida Governor Ron Desantis work The right -wing extremist group Moms for Liberty to put pressure to prohibit books in school libraries. The problem? The books in question contained positive representations of LGBTQ +people.
Trump was the most visible figure on the right of the thrust for speech restrictions. When he started campaigning for the president in the 2016 elections, Trump said He wanted to “open” defamation laws to continue journalists for having accurately reported on him. During his two presidencies, but in particular in his current administration, Trump repeatedly used the power of the presidency to attack dissent.
To give covered their war against speech, The Conservatives said Almost everything they oppose politically as “awake”, then pushed for the withdrawal of “awakened” things – including speech and diversity – public and private institutions and individuals.
Conservatism has a serious problem when it comes to competing with an open war of ideas. Many conservative priorities, such as racism and economic policies bent around the desires of ultra-rich, are not popular with the public as a whole. To allow an open exchange of ideas is to allow the luck that liberalism and the Democratic Party can succeed.
Related | The lapping of the lime of the toxic inheritance of Charlie Kirk is in progress
Instead, the Conservatives sought to fake the system. In an electoral sense, this has led to politicians like Gerrymandering congress districtsRestarting borders to ensure that Republicans gain seats even in areas where Democrats have plurality or majority in a fair system.
The same practice is confirmed by the crusade of the right against the first amendment. If the ideas they do not like are prohibited by default of public discourse, the good arguments “win” by default.
Not only does the attack discourse change the rules to promote law, but it is undermining the foundation of the United States. The revolutionary war and the subsequent drafting of the Constitution and the ratification of The Declaration of Rights were intended to protect America. Battles like the Second World War were led to defend the continuous existence of these rights against the threat of fascism.
Hundreds of thousands of people died by defending these rights.
Now, the use of the murder of a bigot as an excuse, the conservatives and the republican party are determined to erase one of the key pillars of the American society.
