Can the Democrats Take Free Speech Back from the Right?

This is my first column since going on book leave in May. (Thank you to Jon Allsop for filling in admirably and expanding the mission of Fault Lines while he was at it.) Every restart comes with a bit of looking back, and, this week, I want to revisit a series of columns from the past few years which concern the First Amendment. I am a free-speech absolutist —an admittedly mostly useless and conditional term that tends to fall apart at the gentlest touch. What it means, in my case, is that I believe that all forms of nonviolent speech should be protected; that the government should not have any power to regulate media outlets, individual speakers, or online platforms; and that, on a broader, nonlegal, and even spiritual level, people should regard any type of censorship, even w