Free Speech in the Age of Fear

How intimidation, platforms, and politics are reshaping the boundaries of speech

Free speech is under siege—not only by authoritarian figures who seek to consolidate power, but by the everyday culture of intimidation that now permeates civic life. The right to speak freely, once a cornerstone of democratic participation, has become a liability for those who dare to dissent. This assault isn’t limited to Donald Trump and his allies. It has spread into a broader social pattern, where division breeds hostility and silencing becomes a tactic of daily control. The divide between Trump’s supporters and the rest of us is no longer just political; it has become personal. And as that divide deepens, suppression moves from podiums to public squares, from official channels to private inboxes.

To speak freely in this climate is to step into an arena where the rules have changed. Social media, once praised as a tool for democracy, now acts as a battleground where insult replaces argument and slogans drown out substance. The Republican strategy of culture war has turned identity into a weapon, making political difference feel like moral failure. Minds are already made up. Reason doesn’t matter. Debate becomes impossible. Flags wave, chants echo, and the personal becomes political in the worst way. What used to be a fight over ideas—essential to democracy—has become a fight over identity. Disagreement feels like betrayal, dissent like danger.

This shift has created new forms of attack. Online actors—trolls, bots, and harassment campaigns—now target people marked as enemies. These attacks go beyond propaganda. They aim to scare, isolate, and shut people down. Tactics range from spreading lies to pressuring employers, from bullying to quiet threats. I’ve received such threats myself: “Your name is on the list.” At eighty, I’m not easily cowed. But I know others who’ve gone silent, not because they lacked conviction but because speaking came at too high a cost. In this climate, free speech isn’t just a right; it’s a risk. And that risk is made worse by the design of the platforms themselves. Outrage and intimidation aren’t glitches in the system. They are the system. Algorithms reward anger, boost harassment, and profit from division. Silencing isn’t just political—it’s profitable.

Trump’s rhetoric thrives on calculated ambiguity. When he calls opponents “radicals,” he uses a word that sounds specific but remains dangerously vague. Its power lies not in what it means, but in how far it can stretch—to include anyone who resists, protests, or simply disagrees. Whether or not you see yourself as a radical doesn’t matter. In his framework, his definition is what counts. Once labeled, you are no longer a citizen with rights. You are a threat to be dealt with. Language becomes a tool for exclusion, turning dissent into something deviant.

This isn’t a slip of the tongue. It’s a tactic. By turning disagreement into hostility, Trump breaks down the democratic norm that says it is legitimate to argue. In a healthy democracy, dissent shows vitality. Here, it is treated as betrayal. When Trump gave the Medal of Freedom to Kirk—framing it as a slap at “left-wing radicals”—it wasn’t just a tribute. It was a message. It said violence could be politicized, that martyrdom could be used, and that the opposition wasn’t merely wrong but dangerous. When leaders define enemies, the fallout doesn’t stay in speeches. It spreads into culture, into behavior, into fear.

Fear isn’t a side effect anymore. It’s part of the plan. The threats I’ve received are part of a larger system, where being visible puts you at risk. For younger activists, journalists, and scholars, the danger is even greater. Jobs can be lost, reputations ruined, safety put in question. The goal isn’t just to punish speech—it’s to stop it before it starts. Make the cost high enough, and silence becomes the sensible choice. Fear isn’t just in the air. It’s how power works. Authoritarian leaders don’t need to ban speech outright; they only need to make people afraid to speak. Threat becomes policy. Intimidation becomes control. What remains isn’t democracy—it’s obedience dressed as order.

As this kind of targeting becomes routine, the social fabric begins to tear. Neighbors report each other. Employers act as enforcers. Friends fall quiet. The trust that once let people disagree without danger is replaced by suspicion and silence. Free speech doesn’t die in a courtroom. It dies in a conversation—in the moment someone decides not to speak, not to post, not to respond. The chilling effect isn’t theoretical. It’s lived. And it’s spreading.

What makes this moment especially dangerous is the failure of institutions to protect those who speak. Universities equivocate. Newsrooms self-censor. Legal protections lag behind digital realities. The systems that once supported democratic speech—built for print and podium—haven’t kept up with the digital age. In that gap, intimidation thrives. The state, once imagined as the guarantor of rights, now appears complicit in their erosion. This isn’t passive neglect. It’s abandonment.

Silencing follows a pattern. Those who speak on race, inequality, violence, or corruption are disproportionately targeted. The aim is not only to suppress ideas but to suppress the people who voice them. It’s a form of civic erasure. And it works. Voices disappear. Movements stall. The public sphere contracts. What remains is an echo chamber, where speech is safe only when it’s approved. This isn’t the messy pluralism democracy requires. It’s a forced consensus, held together by fear.

To defend free speech now is not simply to invoke the First Amendment. It is to rebuild the conditions that make speech meaningful, safe, and audible. That means confronting the machinery of intimidation—digital, rhetorical, institutional—and refusing to treat it as normal. It means recognizing that speech is not just an individual act but a shared structure. Democracy depends on everyday habits of speech: the ability to argue without fear, to listen without suspicion, to disagree without punishment. When those habits collapse, the constitution is already hollowed out. When that structure corrodes, speech becomes performative at best, dangerous at worst. Repairing it takes more than courage. It takes strategy, solidarity, and a refusal to let fear draw the boundaries of what can be said.

This isn’t a call for heroism. It’s a call for clarity. Free speech is under attack not because it is weak, but because it is powerful. It enables critique, exposes abuse, and demands accountability. That is why it is targeted. If we are to preserve it—not as a slogan but as a civic practice—we must treat its defense as a shared responsibility. Not everyone can speak loudly. Not everyone should have to. But those who do must not be punished for it. A democracy shows its strength not in how it treats the powerful, but in how it protects the dissenter.

Suggested Readings

Ben-Ghiat, Ruth. Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. New York: W.W. Norton, 2020.

Brown, Wendy. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. New York: Zone Books, 2015.

Cohen, Julie E. Between Truth and Power: The Legal Constructions of Informational Capitalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Fairclough, Norman. Language and Power. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 2013.

Kaye, David. Speech Police: The Global Struggle to Govern the Internet. New York: Columbia Global Reports, 2019.

Klein, Naomi. Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023.

Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. How Democracies Die. New York: Crown, 2018.

Rauch, Jonathan. The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2021.

Stanley, Jason. How Propaganda Works. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.

Sunstein, Cass R. #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017.