The brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025 shocked the nation and opened wounds that will not heal quickly, but it did not give any public official the right to blur the line between criminal threats and protected speech. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s appearance on the Katie Miller podcast — where she vowed the Department of Justice would “absolutely target” people engaging in so-called “hate speech” — lit a firestorm across the right because it sounded like a license to criminalize unpopular thought. Americans grieving a murdered conservative deserved firmness against real violence, not an elastic new category of speech enforcement that can be bent to political ends.
Patriots on the right reacted with righteous alarm because our movement has always championed the First Amendment, even for speech we despise; that is what separates liberty from tyranny. Legal scholars and conservative commentators piled on quickly, warning that “hate speech” is not a recognized legal category in U.S. law and that prosecuting people for offensive rhetoric would be unconstitutional and self-defeating. The fury wasn’t just partisan posturing — it was sober concern that a DOJ willing to stretch definitions today could be used against conservatives tomorrow.
To her credit, Bondi tried to walk back the most alarming implication, clarifying that the government’s power targets true threats of violence and not mere offensive commentary. That clarification was necessary, but the damage was real: a top law-enforcement official publicly muddled basic First Amendment doctrine at a moment when unity and constitutional clarity were essential. Conservatives are right to demand both a crackdown on violent radicals and an ironclad pledge that the Justice Department will not become a speech police for political favorites.
Meanwhile, influential voices on the right — from talk-radio hosts to members of Congress — blasted the suggestion that “hate speech” should be a prosecutable offense, reminding Americans that many of our own leaders and institutions have defended ugly, necessary debate. This isn’t hair-splitting; it’s a fight for the principle that the state cannot pick winners and losers in public argument. If conservatives allow the government to police thought now, we will pay for it in lost freedoms, rusty churches, and silenced pulpits later.
At the same time, nobody on the right is arguing that celebrating an assassination or making true threats should go unpunished — those are crimes, and those who cheer murder should face swift consequences from employers, platforms, and, when appropriate, the law. Our side rightly demanded accountability for tasteless cartoons and public celebrations of violence, and institutions that crossed a line have been called out and forced to apologize. There is a difference between social accountability and a politicized Department of Justice hunting down unpopular opinions.
The lesson here should be simple for every conservative who loves country and liberty: stand firm against violence, but defend free speech with equal ferocity, even speech that makes our stomachs turn. The Trump administration and its allies must lead by example — prosecute criminals, protect the innocent, and resist the temptation to weaponize law against speech. If we fail to insist on these boundaries now, we hand the next censor the very tool they need to silence dissent and remake America in the image of bureaucratic control.
