Threat to Freedom of speech

      Some 75 years ago, on Feb. 9, 1950, a Wisconsin senator named Joseph McCarthy gave a Lincoln’s Day address to a county Republican club in Wheeling, West Virginia.

      He held up a piece of paper and declared, “I have here in my hand a list of 205 … names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party.”

      The numbers shifted in a telegram two days later when McCarthy claimed to have the names of “57 ‘card-carrying Communists.’” But though he never produced evidence, the phrase stuck, reigniting the Red Scare and blacklists of the late 1940s and beginning the dark era of McCarthyism that crippled the careers of thousands of Americans who lost jobs in big business and government, as college professors and reporters, in labor and the arts. Hundreds were hauled before the senate subcommittee McCarthy chaired to be browbeaten with accusations.

      Current Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, is among those who have weighed in on those dark days, calling them, according to the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy at Wayne State University Law School, “a shameful chapter in American history, a time … when character assassination, mud-slinging and guilt by association trumped the truth and fairness.”

      The success of McCarthy’s attacks rested to a significant degree on the craven reaction of American leaders outside of government.

      “Without the participation of the private sector,” wrote Ellen Schrecker, a professor and author of several books about the period, “McCarthyism would not have … so effectively stifled political dissent.”

      It’s a lesson directly applicable to the rapid deterioration of First Amendments rights today as Donald Trump and key appointees flex their muscles against those daring to speak out against them. And once again, public and private institutions across the country are showing signs of buckling.

      The ferocity of this attack on the perceived enemy—this time the “radical left” rather than “card-carrying Communists”—has increased sharply since the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA who toured American college campuses challenging students to debate against his hard-right views. In many ways, Kirk built his following by exercising his own free speech, and he stood up for the First Amendment. He wrote on X in 2024, according to politicalwire.com, that “There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment.”

      Yet after the murder, Attorney General Pam Bondi warned on a podcast that the Trump Administration would “absolutely target” what she called “hate speech” in the wake of Kirk’s assassination. “There is free speech and there is hate speech and there is no place [for hate speech], especially now,” she said.

      Pushback was quick from legal experts and even some conservative pundits.

      “There is no unprotected category of speech in the Constitution or in the case law called ‘hate speech,’” Northwestern University law professor Heidi Kitrosser told The Guardian. “By being so vague and by talking about speech that doesn’t fit into any legal category, she is basically opening the door for taking action against anyone who engages in speech that the president or the Department of Justice or Stephen Miller doesn’t like.”

      Bondi’s words, which she subsequently dialed back slightly, nonetheless reflect the administration’s assertion that the “radical left” bears responsibility not only for Kirk’s death but for political violence in general, an assertion that flies in the face of the government’s own statistics.

      But faced with pressure from the administration, corporate moguls are once again falling in line, much as they did during the years of McCarthyism. They’ve begun to fire or “indefinitely suspend” those, from Jimmy Kimmel, the ABC late night host, to Mathew Dowd, a senior political correspondent at MSNBC, who choose words that while perhaps offensive to some and arguably insensitive in the wake of a chilling assassination, clearly were neither hate speech nor so egregious as to merit immediate dismissal.

      In his opening monologue night, Kimmel had said, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything but one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

      The remarks led to a threat by Trump’s chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, to take action against ABC. Hours later, the network announced Kimmel’s “indefinite suspension.”

      Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division, which operates 23 ABC affiliates, told the Associated Press that Kimmel’s comments about Kirk’s death “are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse.”

      That logic, however, apparently did not apply to longtime Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade, who a week ago said on air during a discussion of a brutal slaying by a homeless man that mentally ill homeless people should simply be given “involuntary lethal injections.”

      “Just kill ‘em,” he said.

      Kilmeade was neither fired nor suspended but did apologize four days later, saying, “I apologize for that extremely callous remark.”

      Neither Kimmel nor MSNBC’s Dowd, who after the shooting implied that Kirk’s hateful thoughts and words set up the conditions for hateful actions, were given an opportunity to apologize or walk back their remarks.

      Kimmel’s firing has created an uproar but also threats from the FCC’s Carr of more action to come. Former President Barack Obama has weighed in.

      “After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening retaliatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like,” he said. “This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent—and media companies need to start stand up rather than capitulating to it.”

      Media companies have not been alone in capitulating to the right’s growing coercion.

      The Washington Post has reported that already at least 30 companies, from U.S. airlines to Clemson University, have sanctioned or fired employees in response to statements they made or posted about Kirk’s killing. There are strong signs this number will grow, and quickly. In the state of Texas, for example, Gov. Greg Abbott posted on X that more than 100 teachers “are facing investigation and the possible loss of their certification to teach,” The Post said.

      An organization has sprung up, its funding unclear, that calls itself the Charlie Kirk Data Foundation. It published on its website a searchable list that went viral “of thousands of people accused of posting social media messages of Kirk after his killing,” The Post reported.

      And on X, the article continued, Elon Musk shared what one user said was a spreadsheet with the names, occupations, employers and job status “of people who’ve said vile things about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.” What one person considers “vile,” of course, another might consider contextual or informative. Such is the danger of censorship. Such is the reason the founders protected freedom of speech and the press as cornerstones of the First Amendment.

      We grow stronger, not weaker, from open and civil disagreement and debate.

      Nearly five years after Joseph McCarthy’s infamous speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, the U.S. Senate censored him in December 1954. He died a few years later, a greatly diminished figure.

      Let’s hope this country does not again have to endure what it went through in early 1950s. Or worse.

      History only repeats itself when we ignore its lessons.