DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) – Recent polling reveals nearly half of Democrats believe free speech should be permitted only under certain circumstances.
This division within the Democratic Party is emblematic of a broader alignment with the ideology of college progressives who view certain speech as a form of violence and hold as acceptable repression of speakers with whom they disagree.
Partisan Divide
On the other side of the aisle, 74% of Republican voters and 61% of independents take a more resolute stance, asserting that speech should be legally protected “under any circumstances.”
Democrats, however, are nearly evenly split, with 53% advocating for unrestricted speech, while the remaining 47% advocate for restrictions based on content or circumstances. On a related note, a significant bloc of Democratic voters, 34%, believe that Americans possess “too much freedom.” This is in stark contrast to the scant 14.6% of Republicans who share the sentiment.
Notably, 46% of Republicans believe that Americans have too little freedom, compared to just 22% of Democrats. Independents fall in between on both fronts.
Poll after poll shows that significant majorities of Democrats — or US liberals — strongly favor both corporate control and state control of political speech online, both in the name of stopping hate speech and disinformation, which FBI and DHS will benevolently decide: https://t.co/vwGH0zhAgX
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 24, 2023
Some Reactions
Megyn Kelly highlighted the concerning trend, stating, “This is what we’re up against.” And Glenn Greenwald noted in a tweet, “Poll after poll shows that significant majorities of Democrats — or US liberals — strongly favor both corporate control and state control of political speech online, both in the name of stopping hate speech and disinformation, which [the] FBI and DHS will benevolently decide.”
These responses underscore the importance of this issue, as the survey reveals that a substantial portion of Democrats are supportive of curbing freedom of speech, a position that contrasts starkly with the views of Republicans and independents.