Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Which side are you on?

Censorship, it appears, is only deplorable when it is enforced by their opponents

Trump’s victory sets a test for conservatives, a test they are failing with embarrassing ineptitude. They are making the oldest mistake in politics. They are carrying on as if nothing has changed.

In the early 21st century, it was easy to attack the supposed liberal left. These alleged liberals were for real censorship. The white working class was their enemy. Radical Islam was the fascism of the time, yet liberals who thought themselves anti-fascists accepted that misogyny, prejudice and hatred of individual rights were fine, as long as the haters had brown rather than white skin.

Apparently moral conservative writers joined the democratic left in tearing into such double standards. Yet in the background hung questions they should never have been allowed to duck. What does it mean to be a conservative? What are conservatives for?

Now we have, if not a new fascism, at least a new nationalist authoritarianism. But conservative politicians and the media’s claque of Tory talking heads are unable to oppose it.

Instead they have doubled down on liberal hypocrisy. Trump incites his fans to attack reporters. He wants to ‘open up’ America’s libel laws to make it easier for rich men to sue news organisations that do not treat them with enough deference. There is even talk among his supporters of a Trump presidency sending state inquisitors into universities to root out academic bias. Maybe I do not read as widely as I should. But I have not seen any of the conservatives who condemn the ‘Stepford students’ take on these threats to free speech. Censorship, it appears, is deplorable when it is enforced by their opponents but unremarkable when enacted by their friends.

The white working class, for whom they expressed such concern, appear to be as dispensable as the freedom to speak and write without punishment.

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