Burst your bubble: five conservative takes on free speech – The Guardian

In all such examples, theyre at least conceding that were not wrong. Illustration: Rob Dobi

When you read rightwing commentators, youll notice that any grains of truth are frequently delivered along with a poison pill. A principled defense of free speech comes with a demand to wave through Ann Coulter. An acknowledgement of the destructive nature of inequality comes with a recommendation of more of the same. Sound analysis of problems with news media is salted with praise for Richard Nixon. And frank assessments of Trumps failures are accompanied by a castigation of the left or lots of shouting.

Still, we take what we can, where we can.

Look at it this way: in all such examples, theyre at least conceding that were not wrong.

Publication: The Week

Author: Anthony L Fisher is a libertarian journalist and film-maker who holds down an editing role at Reason, a column at the Week, and talking-head gigs at places ranging from Fox News to NPR.

Why you should read it: Fisher responds to recent liberal efforts to erect a category of hate speech as a way of finding loopholes in the first amendment. (The stimulus was a recent tweet by Howard Dean on the topic of Ann Coulters histrionic schtick.) Forcefully, he argues that the category of fighting words, often mobilized in this debate, has dubious legal force. In passing, he notes the irony that the precedent which is often imagined as establishing this category involved an antiwar Jehovahs Witness describing a police officer as a fascist. Rightly, he observes that the right to unpopular or offensive speech has been a foundation for progressive political projects. Professors, politicians and the left more broadly should know better than to put their faith in authority when it comes to the competition of ideas.

Extract: These characters might not deserve free speech, but they are entitled to it. Rights are not earned by the righteousness of ones values. Theyre just rights. And the right to freedom of expression is the tool that cultivated the fight to win every civil right in this countrys history. There is no civil rights movement, no gay rights movement, no feminist movement, and no anti-war movement without broad free speech protections for unpopular expression.

Publication: National Review

Author: David Alexander is a former Australian conservative apparatchik he served as an adviser in the government of John Howard who has trod the well-worn path to lobbying. He has written for rightwing outlets in Australia and the UK; this is his debut at US conservative mothership, National Review.

Why you should read it: Up to a point, this is extremely interesting. Alexander acknowledges the obvious limitations on neoliberalisms beloved Pareto principle, which states that if one groups spending power improves, we should assume zero impairment to other groups providing their absolute position does not go backward. But some assets marriage partners, job status, land are zero-sum and do drive inequality into the future. Meanwhile, conservative rhetoric about taxes has convinced the rich that they are the victims of middle class and working class takers who, the theory goes, pay no net tax. Thus, widening inequality has been a recipe for bottom-up and top-down resentment.

Unfortunately, Alexanders main recommendation is to follow the lead of former Australian PM John Howard. As any Australian can tell you, Howard squared the circle by scapegoating refugees, drumming up war fever and dishing out electoral bribes to the middle class.

Extract: Once we understand the causes of increasing frustration at both the top and bottom of the economic ladder, the deeply destabilizing political consequences of widening economic gaps become clearer. Where underlying inequality expands we can see the development of increasingly intense grievances at both ends of the spectrum: Those at the bottom feeling less and less competitive in important areas, while those at the top feel increasingly resentful about the proportion of tax coming from them and insist that those below start paying more. If the bidding-power gap grows wide enough it is possible to imagine the system crumbling through a combination of frustration, illiberal measures, populist demagoguery, repression, and stagnation the sorts of cycles that Latin American countries, with the highest inequality levels in the world, go through regularly.

Publication: The American Conservative

Author: Pat Buchanan is Americas grandfather of paleoconservatism, the founder of the American Conservative, and, until Trump came along, the man who ran the most anti-immigration and isolationist presidential campaigns in modern American history. He fell hard for Trump, and despite the presidents reversals and stumbles, Buchanan cant quite seem to get over him.

Why you should read it: In between the gloating, there are some horrible truths in Buchanans celebration of Trumps war on the news media. The institutions that deservedly took down Nixon are, today, themselves objects of significant scorn, derision and mistrust. This unhappy state is partly the result of a deliberate, decades-long campaign of demonisation by conservative politicians and their captive, partisan outlets. MSM is practically a dirty word; somewhere, Nixon is smiling.

Extract: Whatever happens to Trump, the respect and regard the mainstream media once enjoyed are gone. Public opinion of the national press puts them down beside the politicians they cover and for good reason. The people have concluded that the media really belong to the political class and merely masquerade as objective and conscientious observers. Like everyone else, they, too, have ideologies and agendas.

Publication: Conservative Review

Author: Does Mark Levin have the loudest yell in conservative talk radio? Only a shirtless Alex Jones could hope to come close. Certainly, his dulcet tones have proved irresistible to this column before.

Why you should listen to it: Levin was a #nevertrump Cruz guy, and hes only ever offered grudging praise of the president. This is his niche, and therefore his job: hes the tribune of the same grumpy-but-principled constitutional conservatives that swelled the ranks of the Tea Party; he and his loyal listeners have always suspected that Trump was a crypto-Democrat. Trump and Paul Ryan were, as Charles Krauthammer put it, rolled in the recent budget negotiations, and Levinites have little patience with the explanations that have emphasized keeping Republican powder dry for the bigger fight in September. They want Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, the EPA and the NEA buried now. Levin here articulates and stokes their rage. If Trump doesnt start winning like he promised on domestic issues, he will face a full-blown rebellion from these folks. But then again, its hard to imagine that he could ever have pleased them. Theyre uncompromising.

Extract: From 0:13 right to the end of this cut from Levins show, this is a bravura performance of the conservative rage that Trump and Congressional Republicans will have to deal with for so long as they do not meet every demand of Tea Party conservatives. They may not have gotten their man (Ted Cruz) but they can still cause incalculable political damage by firing up the Republican base just ask John Boehner and Jeb Bush.

Publication: The Wall Street Journal

Author: Peggy Noonan is the grande dame of conservative opinionators. She was a Reagan speechwriter, has written five New York Times bestsellers and has held down her slot at the Wall Street Journal since 2000 (she won a Pulitzer for her column this year). She leans establishment and moderate by the standards of contemporary American conservatism she famously criticized Sarah Palins bearing and credentials in 2008, and the base was not well pleased. Shes been increasingly critical of Trumps chaotic tenure in the White House.

Why you should read it: Noonan thinks that the only thing saving Trump from his own blunders is the character of his enemies. She notes the perfect historical irony that if the Trump administration ends in failure (a result that is looking more likely by the day), it remains true that because of the anger of the base, Donald Trump was the only Republican who could have won the GOP nomination and also the only Republican who could have won the general election.

Only the incoherence of the Democrats response and, according to Noonan, the fact that the resistance has become identified with the far left is preserving his administration from total collapse. Naturally, Noonan does not canvas the role of rightwing media in demonizing protesters as violent insurrectionists. Progressives, though, should take note of the feedback loop here between the smearing of protesters and more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tut-tutting like Noonans. This is how movements get wedged.

Extract: The cursing pols, the anathematizing abortion advocates, the screeching students they are now the face of the progressive left. This is what America sees now as the face of the Democratic party. It is a party blowing itself up whose only hope is that Donald Trump blows up first. He may not be lucky in all of his decisions or staffers, or in his own immaturities and dramas. But hand it to him a hundred days in: Hes lucky in his main foes.

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Burst your bubble: five conservative takes on free speech - The Guardian