The Freedom Fraud: How the Right Weaponized Liberty Against Democracy

From Patriots to Authoritarians in One Generation

Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

They call themselves the party of freedom. The defenders of free speech. The guardians of constitutional liberty against government overreach. They’ve wrapped themselves in the rhetoric of the First Amendment for decades, positioning themselves as the last bulwark against creeping authoritarianism and thought control.

So where is their outrage when tourists and students are being barred from America for social media posts critical of Israeli policy, when the FBI raids John Bolton’s home for criticizing the president, when major law firms are terrorized away from civil rights cases, when universities face ideological purification through funding extortion, when state officials use government resources to promote religious nationalism?

The silence is deafening. And revealing.

This isn’t principled constitutional conservatism. This is a protection racket masquerading as freedom advocacy. They don’t defend freedom as a principle—they weaponize it as a tactic. And tactics serve one goal: power.

The First Amendment as Weapon

For the American right, the First Amendment has always been a shield when out of power and a sword when in power. When they lack control over institutions, free speech becomes sacred—an absolute principle that must protect even the most offensive expression from any consequence. When they gain control, free speech becomes malleable—a privilege to be granted to allies and denied to enemies.

We should have learned this lesson during McCarthyism, when conservatives destroyed careers and lives for political opinions they deemed subversive. We should have learned it after 9/11, when they made dissent from the War on Terror literally dangerous to express publicly. We certainly should have learned it now, as they systematically use federal power to punish political speech, terrorize legal advocates, and force universities into ideological submission.

But the pattern keeps repeating because people refuse to recognize what they’re witnessing: not principled constitutional conservatism but strategic authoritarianism that uses liberty rhetoric to advance dominance goals.

Federal Punishment for Political Speech

When the Trump administration cancels visas and rejects tourists for expressing criticism of Israeli policy on social media, they’re engaging in exactly the kind of government censorship that conservatives spent decades claiming to oppose. These are political opinions about foreign policy that fall squarely within First Amendment protection.

Let’s be crystal clear: the federal government is punishing people for political speech. Not incitement to violence. Not threats against individuals. Not violations of any law. Political opinions about foreign policy that the Constitution explicitly protects.

I’m not demanding that anyone agree with critics of Israeli policy. Having the opinion that Israel is conducting genocide is undoubtedly within the boundaries of protected political speech under the First Amendment. Whether that opinion is right or wrong is irrelevant to whether it’s constitutionally protected. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that a majority of Americans have themselves become critical of Israel’s conduct. Therefore, our government is denying entry of foreigners who hold what can only be called mainstream American views.

The First Amendment doesn’t protect only correct speech or popular speech or inoffensive speech. It protects political speech, period. When the federal government punishes citizens for expressing political opinions—however wrong or offensive some might find them—they’re attacking the foundational principle that makes democratic discourse possible.

But where are the passionate defenders of free speech? Where are the warnings about government overreach? Silent—because their “free speech” advocacy was never about principle.

The Protection Racket in Action

This is how protection rackets work: nice institution you have there, shame if something happened to its federal funding. Nice career you have there, shame if the FBI showed up at your door.

When FBI agents raided John Bolton’s home for the crime of writing a book critical of Trump’s collaboration with Putin, they demonstrated the complete weaponization of federal law enforcement against political speech. Bolton—lifelong Republican, former National Security Advisor—was targeted for prosecution specifically because he criticized the president.

This is exactly the kind of government retaliation against political dissent that conservatives spent decades claiming to oppose. But where are the fierce defenders of free speech now? Where are the warnings about weaponized law enforcement? Silent—because their “constitutional conservatism” was always about protecting their own speech while enabling government suppression of opposition voices.

The same protection racket logic governs law firm intimidation and university extortion. The American Bar Association’s lawsuit states it clearly: “Law firms that once proudly contributed thousands of hours of pro bono work to a host of causes have withdrawn from such work because it is disfavored by the Administration.” Trump’s executive orders forced nine major firms to pay $940 million in tribute to “Trump-approved causes” to avoid elimination.

Universities face identical choices: submit to ideological demands or watch your institution get destroyed. Columbia paid $200 million. Brown paid $50 million. Penn agreed to apologize for allowing transgender athlete participation. Harvard is fighting back and experiencing the full punishment: $9 billion in funding at risk, contracts terminated, tax-exempt status threatened, international student enrollment blocked.

The administration demands that universities eliminate diversity programs, submit to external audits for “ideological capture,” restrict faculty power, and report on international students. This isn’t fighting antisemitism—it’s systematic ideological purification through economic coercion.

This creates perfect authoritarian infrastructure: you don’t need to ban constitutional advocacy when you can make it professionally suicidal. You don’t need to eliminate academic freedom when you can force institutions to choose between federal funding and intellectual independence. You don’t need to formally suppress dissent when the cost of dissent becomes prohibitive.

The message is always the same: submit or be destroyed. And the “free speech champions” cheer it on.

State-Sponsored Religious Nationalism

Meanwhile, Ken Paxton uses his official capacity as Texas Attorney General to promote “the Lord’s Prayer as taught by Jesus Christ” in public schools while declaring that “we want the Word of God opened, the Ten Commandments displayed, and prayers lifted up” and attacking “twisted, radical liberals” who believe in constitutional separation of church and state.

This is textbook Establishment Clause violation: a state official using government resources to promote one specific religion while declaring war on constitutional principles. The language reveals everything: not “students may choose to pray,” but “we want” Christian symbols and Christian prayers in public schools. This is state-sponsored religious indoctrination disguised as religious freedom.

The Historical Betrayal

This would be shocking hypocrisy if it weren’t so predictable. Remember the “patriotically correct” era after 9/11? The Dixie Chicks received death threats and career destruction for mild criticism of Bush’s war. Bill Maher was fired for questioning official narratives. Professors were denied tenure for opposing the Iraq War. Congress literally renamed french fries “freedom fries” because France wouldn’t join their imperial adventure.

The same movement that made dissent from the War on Terror literally dangerous now lectures others about free speech and ideological conformity. They destroyed careers, ended friendships, and made questioning government policy social suicide—all while claiming to defend American values.

The Campus Distinction

Campus censorship was real and illiberal—but it was social pressure from activists, not state coercion from government. Protests on campus may chill speech, but FBI raids end it.

When campus activists tried to shut down conservative speakers, that was wrong—but it was private actors using social pressure, not government officials using state power. When the Trump administration punishes tourists for social media posts, when it extorts universities through funding threats, when it terrorizes law firms through executive orders—that’s the federal government using its monopoly on force to control political expression.

The conservative movement spent years deliberately blurring this distinction to make their government censorship seem equivalent to campus activism. But the distinction matters enormously: social consequences versus state punishment, private pressure versus government coercion, civil society boundaries versus federal retaliation.

The Test of Principle

The true test of free speech commitment isn’t whether you defend popular speech or speech you agree with—it’s whether you defend unpopular speech that challenges your own preferred policies. By this measure, the conservative movement has failed completely.

They defend the right to say racist things but not the right to criticize Israeli policy. They defend the right to promote Christianity in schools but not the right to advocate for secular education. They defend the right to spread misinformation but not the right to challenge their preferred narratives. Their “principled” defense of free speech turns out to be entirely dependent on whose speech is being defended and which policies that speech might challenge.

The Complete Fraud

The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable: Federal punishment for political speech while claiming to defend free expression. Government extortion of universities while claiming to oppose campus censorship. State promotion of religious nationalism while claiming to defend religious liberty. Systematic intimidation of legal advocates while claiming to support constitutional principles. FBI raids against political critics while claiming to oppose weaponized law enforcement.

This isn’t principled constitutional conservatism—it’s tactical authoritarianism that uses freedom rhetoric to advance dominance goals. They never believed in free speech as a universal principle. They believed in speech protection for their preferred viewpoints and speech control for everything else.

The campus free speech movement stands completely exposed as the fraud it always was. When they complained about being “silenced,” they weren’t defending universal principles—they were positioning themselves to eliminate academic freedom the moment they gained power.

The Choice We Face

We face a fundamental choice between actual freedom and its authoritarian simulation. Between the messy, uncomfortable, genuinely democratic freedom that protects everyone’s right to participate in public discourse, and the clean, hierarchical, systematically exclusionary freedom that protects only regime-approved viewpoints.

The conservative movement has made its choice. They’ve chosen the simulation over the reality, tribal advantage over universal principle, authoritarian control over democratic participation. Given the choice between constitutional principle and political advantage, they chose advantage. Every time.

The Historical Verdict

History will remember this generation of conservatives not as freedom fighters but as freedom’s executioners. They had every opportunity to prove their principles were real when those principles required defending speech they opposed, protecting institutions they disliked, and constraining power they wielded.

They failed the test completely. The party that claimed to defend the First Amendment became the party that weaponized the federal government against it. The movement that positioned itself as the guardian of constitutional liberty became the architect of its systematic destruction.

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And right-wing conservatives never believed in freedom. They believed in power. And they’ve proven it every single time.