The MAGA Way: Free Speech For Me, None For Thee

As JD Vance admonishes Europe for backtracking on free speech and pals around with racists, Donald Trump and Elon Musk accelerate their attacks on journalists, critics, and democracy.

If you want to understand projection, just look at MAGA.

Every accusation is a confession. They loathe safe spaces for everyone else, but demand safe spaces for themselves. They are for law and order, but they worship a convicted criminal who was held liable for sexual assault. They claim to be patriots, but they bend the knee to Putin and throw American allies under the bus. They say they’re against the elite, but they are perfectly fine letting billionaires run the Trump Administration. They despise immigrants and blame them for taking jobs, but they love it when Elon Musk, a South African immigrant, dismantles thousands of federal jobs. They hate DEI and demand the “best and brightest” work in the most difficult jobs, but they support the most unqualified people, such as Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard, and RFK Jr, heading critical departments.

It’s the type of hypocrisy and delusion that only makes sense if you’re a full-fledged member of a cult fed a 24-7 diet of lies, conspiracies, and grievances.

One of their most egregious Cirque-Du-Soleil feats of mental and moral gymnastics is their performative battle cries for “free speech” and the First Amendment as they actively try to suppress and crush any dissidents. The most exquisite example of a self-own was by self-proclaimed free speech warrior Elon Musk.

Here’s a play in 2 Acts:

Musk was enraged that 60 Minutes did an expose of Trump and Musk’s attacks on USAID, so now the long-running newsmagazine deserves a lengthy prison sentence. The world’s most brittle and fragile snowlake always melts down whenever he’s challenged and confronted. Recall, he punished bat-shit conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer by taking away her verification badge after she criticized his support for H1-B visas.

For his part, JD Vance is now trying his best to prove he’s a real boy and a real VP instead of a disposable playtoy of the PayPal South African billionaire broligarchy. He posted a tweet saying threatening to jail people for dissenting views was a “threat to free speech,” but like the Reek he is, he refused to name or tag Musk. Instead, Vance reserved his scorn for American journalist Mehdi Hasan who pointed out the hypocrisy of Vance staying silent as Trump openly punished and sidelined the AP for not referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

Interestingly, Vance had no robust defense of free speech for the American press. Also, he apparently has a lot of free time to go after American journalists considering his job is being done by Musk. All of this is so nakedly shameless considering Vance just admonished our European allies in Munich for allegedly backtracking on core, shared values of “free speech.” He cited misleading examples without context accusing European countries of curtailing the free speech of right-wing actors, but had no words to defend pro-Palestinian protestors in Germany and France who are suffering a crackdown. He defended anti-abortion activists but has no robut defense for women and doctors who are routinely harassed by right-wing activists in America.

Vance also found time to meet Alice Weidel, the co-leader of AfD, under the guise of engaging with “alternative views.” That’s the pro-Nazi German party whose leaders are under surveillance as potential security threats. Of course, if you espouse “alternative views” under DEI then they must be scrubbed, banned, and eliminated in the United States. Speaking of projection, Trump has also quoted Hitler in his defense of potentially unleashing the National Guard and military against people he claims are “the enemy from within.” So much for the freedom of assembly and protest! The Nazis burned books, but right now MAGA is simply content banning books. However, the year is still young. Trump also unleashed a violent insurrection and tried to cancel our free and fair elections. But, that doesn’t count for some reason because something… something…deep state.

The constitution, law and order, and the separation of powers clearly don’t mean much to Trump and MAGA based on his tweet from February 15th that seems to invoke Napoleon, that freedom-loving Emperor of France.

We’re still waiting for Republicans, such as the new Border Czar Tom Homan, to condemn him but he’s too busy threatening AOC prosecution for hosting a forum on “Know Your Rights” for undocumented immigrants. Apparently, this was a step too far even for MAGA law professor Jonathan Turley who wrote, “Such a prosecution would be an assault on free speech rights…this baseless threat undermines the high ground achieved in Munich.”

Well, I guess there are some standards…for now.

It seems MAGA cares only about free speech when it’s meant to defend and support Nazis, racists, conspiracy theories, Russian meddling in elections, and disinformation. If you’re actually waiting for them to support the freedoms for the rest of us, well, you still have the right to hold your breath.

For now.