Staff Reports
The reversal now playing out among liberals is nothing short of astonishing. For the better part of a decade, silence and censorship were the left’s most prized political tools—celebrated each time a conservative was banned, deplatformed, or otherwise erased for daring to stray from progressive doctrine. Now in 2025, those same voices have been forced to taste a sliver of their own medicine, and suddenly, free speech is their rallying cry. The hypocrisy is so blatant it’s almost comical.
What we’re seeing in today’s headlines is not a newfound love of liberty, but a desperate attempt to protect their own after years spent vilifying dissent. The left adored holding the reins over who gets to speak and who doesn’t. Now, facing even modest accountability for openly celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk, they gnash their teeth and claim they’re victims of censorship. Their concern isn’t for free speech—it’s about maintaining their monopoly on the conversation.
And just like that, the Right became the anti–free speech, censorship happy, woke-mob cancel culture they screeched about for four years. pic.twitter.com/TJ8Fc71KrZ
— Jason Bassler (@JasonBassler1) September 16, 2025
The assassination of Charlie Kirk stands as a grim warning of what happens when years of demonizing opposing voices boils over. This wasn’t just a murder of one man; it was an assault on the conservative movement’s very right to participate in the national dialogue. Yet, in the aftermath, liberals have the gall to mourn negative outcomes without any self-reflection about the corrupt, hostile culture they helped create. They slipped off the “cancel cliff” they’d built, and now fumble for sympathy from the very people they spent years silencing.
While conservatives consistently defend free expression—even for critics—liberals only care about speech rights when they themselves are harmed. Progressive outrage over cancel culture is rich coming from those who engineered and justified this toxic phenomenon to begin with. The left’s tactics—whether deplatforming or celebrating threats of violence—have sown a society where true debate is replaced by intimidation and fear.
The left’s cries for understanding should be seen for what they are: a last-ditch attempt to escape accountability for the dangerous climate they fostered. Americans must hold fast to genuine free speech principles and refuse to let the architects of division rewrite the narrative for their own convenience. If the left truly respected dialogue, they wouldn’t wait until their own games backfired to care about the rules.
