A Majority of Republicans and Democrats Agree – Free Speech Is Heading in the Wrong Direction

​Can you remember a time when the survival of free speech in America – something we’ve long taken for granted – was suddenly a matter of national concern?
 
Consider what has emerged in the last year:

• The Biden Administration funded a foreign non-governmental organization that then mounted a secret effort to defund U.S. news outlets that had a libertarian or conservative stance.

 

• Charlie Kirk was murdered as he tried to hold a respectful debate on a college campus with people who disagreed with him.

 

• Brendan Carr, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, urged the firing of a late-night talk-show host.

 

• The Trump administration issued executive orders punishing law firms by limiting their access to federal buildings and contracts, citing the political activities of former members of these firms.

We could go on. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you probably could as well. But there is good news – the American people are noticing what is going on in Washington – and they don’t like it.
 
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression conducts a quarterly survey that makes up its National Speech Index. It finds unprecedented levels of Americans concerned that the protection of free speech, the most basic of our liberties, is eroding.

• When asked in October if the right of people to freely express their views is heading in the right or wrong direction, 74 percent of respondents replied “wrong direction.” This is a 10-point jump from the previous July survey.

 

• People of all political persuasions are worried. Since July, Democrats who think the treatment of speech is heading in the right direction dropped from 17 percent to 11 percent; independents fell from 31 percent to 19 percent; and Republicans fell from 69 percent to 55 percent.

The survey also shows that while concern for free speech is rising, a substantial minority still doesn’t seem to understand or respect the basic principle of free speech.

• Almost a quarter of respondents believe a professor should be fired for saying, “Our colleges and universities are progressive indoctrination centers.”

 

• Fourteen percent would consider firing a professor who echoed the theme of the last successful presidential campaign, “We are going to make America great again.”

An NPR/PBS News/Marist poll in September found that 30 percent of American adults believe that Americans “may have to resort to violence to get the country back on track.”
 
Somehow, large numbers of Americans fail to appreciate that free speech means tolerating speech (and the politics) of people we intensely dislike. Recent events underscore this blind spot.
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• Actor Jon Voight posted a statement over the weekend asking President Trump to “terminate” the mayoralty of New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani to save us from this “communist fool.”

 

• The Washington Free Beacon reported on Monday that philanthropist George Soros has given $250,000 to the UK Center for Countering Digital Hate, which organizes boycotts of conservative speech.

These calls for censorship are morally wrong because they violate the inherent right of human beings to vote and speak as they wish, even if you think their ideas are disastrous. And the censors are endangering their own interests. A federal government powerful enough to overturn local elections and defund speech is powerful enough to turn on them.

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