Five years ago, in the midst of the George Floyd protests, I helped write a rather anodyne statement in defense of open inquiry, signed by more than 150 writers, artists, and intellectuals. Without using the phrase, it criticized cancel culture. Almost immediately upon its publication in Harper’s, the statement became the “notorious” Harper’s Letter—the object of furious condemnation by journalists and academics as the pearl-clutching of elites and an excuse for bigotry. This torrent of abuse came from the left, which no longer believed in open inquiry. Those on the right raged against left-wing puritans and declared themselves militants for free speech, even—especially—hatred and lies.
Since Trump’s return to office, and with Kirk’s murder, the roles have completely reversed. The left, which not long ago perfected mob-sponsored silencing, is (rightly) outraged at the Trump administration’s top-down cancel culture. Meanwhile, those former free-speech absolutists Trump, Vance, and Stephen Miller have become lord high executioners of thought crime. If a new Harper’s Letter defending the value of open inquiry were written today, many of the original letter’s fiercest critics would rush to sign it. Free-speech hypocrisy is a symptom of the democratic decay that makes authoritarianism possible.