Because I am cursed with picking book topics that become disturbingly more relevant while I'm working on them, I must now take a break from my upcoming book about fascism and free speech in America to write about ... the collision between fascism and free speech in America.

Last week, I mused about whether the Trump administration would seize on the spectacular murder of Charlie Kirk¹ as a Reichstag Fire moment — a perceived state emergency used as a pretext for an authoritarian power grab. Somehow, I missed that some on the American right were actively calling for it to be one, unironically analogizing themselves with the Nazis of 1933. Great stuff!

A lot has happened since then. Disney/ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel for making an “ill-timed” joke about Kirk (or, more precisely, about Trump’s reaction to and use of Kirk’s murder) under pressure from Trump’s lieutenant at the Federal Communications Commission, then reinstated him in the face of a consumer revolt. Trump told reporters that, while he is “a very strong person for free speech,” news stories about him that he doesn’t like are “really illegal.” He then continued his Watergate-in-the-open by forcing the Justice Department to indict the first of his political enemies, former FBI director James Comey. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced he will revoke the Pentagon credentials of media organizations who gather information his office has not authorized in advance.

Finally, the administration capped things off last night by issuing a National Security Presidential Memorandum making many kinds of left-coded speech — including anti-capitalism, “anti-Christianity,” and “extremism on migration, race, and gender” — grounds for federal reprisal. “Anti-fascism” itself, according to the decree, is a “lie … used by domestic terrorists to wage a violent assault against democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental American liberties.” (Explicitly denouncing anti-fascism is a choice!) The most cuttingly ironic basis for investigation is “support for the overthrow of the United States Government” — a longtime goal of many of Trump’s closest allies, some of whom tried to realize it on January 6, 2021.

While not as categorical in abridging civil liberties as the Reichstag Fire Decree was, it’s certainly in the extended family. It isn’t clear what power this decree will have, or who the first targets of it will be. (In signing it Trump specifically cited George Soros, who at age 95 is nearing the end of his usefulness as the current favorite of global antisemitic conspiracists.)

A lot of media are reacting to this with the customary head-scratching. The New York Times subtitled their story on Trump’s “really illegal” comments: “It remained unclear why the president believed negative news coverage, which all of his predecessors have faced and is protected by the Constitution, would be against the law.” (Did it?) Jen White, host of WAMU’s 1A on NPR, opened a conversation about the free-speech crackdowns by quoting Trump’s campaign promise to halt “illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression” and that opened his term by signing an executive order to “stop all federal censorship and bring back America.” Greg Lukianoff of the right-libertarian Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) settled for calling everyone “a free-speech hypocrite” and adopting Trumpworld’s defense that they are merely retaliating “tit for tat” against the supposed excesses of the center-left.

Since this is an independent newsletter (and thanks to those of you who make that possible through your generous support), we don’t have to play dumb or retreat to bothsidesism. Trump and his coterie’s intentions were always to use howls of “free speech” to crash the party, with the ultimate goal of consolidating control — which would in turn mean outlawing criticism and the dissemination of information or rhetoric they don’t like, or that might mobilize the people against their plans.

This was obvious for two reasons: one, because Trump stated his intention to do so explicitly during the last campaign. And two, because using claims of victimhood from censorship to justify seizing power and ending free speech has been the far right’s go-to move for over a century.

Cries of censorship and concomitant demands for retaliation have been a feature of fascist and far-right authoritarian movements since at least the start of the 20th Century. I’ve previously cited that famous cartoon, which ran in Der Stürmer, featuring a portrait of Adolf Hitler with tape over his mouth and the caption: “He alone of 2 billion people on Earth may not speak in Germany.” Having used a libertarian argument to demand a platform, then power, the Nazis then made sure that no German but Hitler — and those whose speech he approved of — would have the right to speak again.