How did 'free speech' become a partisan weapon in America?

In the United States today, the right to free speech is enshrined in the Constitution, but that doesn’t mean everyone agrees on what it looks like in practice. On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer opens with a landmark case: when neo-Nazis won the right to march through a Holocaust survivor community in Skokie, Illinois. The decision was controversial but helped define modern free speech as “ugly, uncomfortable, and messy,” yet fundamental to American democracy. Today, that foundational idea is once again being tested—on college campuses, in immigration courts, and in the rhetoric of both political parties.

Republicans have embraced free speech as a culture war rallying cry, using it to combat what they see as liberal censorship on college campuses and social media. Donald Trump even signed an executive order on his first day back in office aimed at curbing government interference in free speech. But Democrats argue that the same administration is now weaponizing federal power, targeting foreign students, threatening university funding, and punishing dissenting voices in ways that undermine the very freedoms it claims to defend.

Both parties claim to be protecting free speech, just not the same kind.

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