On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staff had resigned after asking about racist social media posts from accounts linked to him.
A quick resignation was, at least at first, a breath of fresh air. President Donald Trump and his allies have repeatedly refused to adhere to basic social norms and have faced little. Elon Musk refused to apologise for gestures that at least look similar to Nazi salutes. A senior State Department official tweeted whether he tweeted, “If you want things to work, a capable white man must take charge.” Public embarrassment may seem no longer serving as a guardrail against corrupt or irresponsible governance.
So when Marco Erez, a 25-year-old staff member who has accessed the Treasury central payment system, felt enough pressure to stop, it appears there are still lines that Trump and his allies were unable to cross. Ta.
That is, until the next day, when Doge's lead Elon Musk asks X's followers to answer this poll.
Vice President JD Vance later shared Musk's tweet. “I obviously disagree with some of Erez's posts, but I don't think stupid social media activities should ruin a child's life,” Vance wrote. “So I say I'll bring him back.” By Friday afternoon, Musk had announced that Erez would get his job back.
To put all this into perspective, here is a sample of the kind of things Erez said online:
- “For the record, I was racist before it got cool.”
- “It normalizes India's hatred.”
- “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity.”
The truth is that everyone is saying something they will regret one day. And it is reasonable to say that people should not be punished as children, or as children, especially when they demonstrate that they have changed and mature. But Erez – an adult in a position of important forces – said all this Within the past year. The idea that he should not face the consequences of making such offensive remarks, or that he should have access to people's data, is ridiculous to his face.
However, this story is not really about Erez. That's about what Republicans really mean when they say they believe in free speech. Musk styled himself as an outspoken supporter of the first revision, saying that he first invested in Twitter (he renamed X), and that he “has made it the “free speech of all over the world.” Because we wanted to make it a platform for. In a follow-up tweet, Vance said he didn't want to make them worried about whether light comments or false perspectives will follow them for the rest of their lives.
In other words, our speeches, no matter how aggressive they are, should not only be legal, but also socially acceptable.
But the Republicans really don't believe in that absolutist ideal. In fact, the first weeks of the Trump administration, particularly Erez's fiasco, exemplifies contradictions at the heart of the right Free Speech Rally. What they actually want is to use the power of the state to suppress speeches that they personally dislike, while being free to say the most aggressive and racist things without getting pushback .
Conflict message about GOP's freedom of speech
The Republican Party is by no means a free speech party.
Over the past few years, the GOP has been an ambitious major political party intended to suppress or punish speeches that the government actually appears to be unacceptable. This ranges from the ban on books to retaliation against private companies to unleash law enforcement and take political stances in order to suck up the protest. (Indeed, Democrats use similar tactics.)
The first three weeks of the Trump administration emphasize that Republicans are not the absolute absolutists of the freedom of speech they argue.
Last week, for example, Trump issued an executive order aimed at enforcing international students who participated in the pro-Palestinian protests last year abroad. The Order Factsheet says it will target “Hamas sympathizers” and cancel the student visa. “To all the resident aliens who participated in the jihadist protests, we have notified you: Come in 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you “We'll do that,” Trump said in a statement. “I will also quickly cancel all Hamas sympathizer student visas on university campus.
The Trump administration has not only discouraged speeches in some form, but has also taken concrete steps to actually deport people for attending protests that people expressed opinions they think are offensive. . Therefore, those who say “normalize India's hatred” may have a place in the Trump government without facing any major occupational consequences. Children say the most frightening things – People who have opinions or ideas that Republicans dislike are not even welcome to enter the country.
This is not just a case of the typical hypocrisy we expect from a politician. It's a coherent view of the world. The Trump administration has made it clear that while it has ample tolerance for radical ideas, its completely racist language and gestures, it lacks dissent or disagreement.
Vance and Musk are preparing to bring Erez back to the post of Doge, so they may argue that he simply made a mistake. And they'll be right – the first correction almost does that.
But the Trump administration certainly isn't, and the speech they choose to protect personally should tell you everything about how they see the world.
