Two major academics faced serious assassination attempts over the last month: Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie and Russian political philosopher Aleksandr Dugin.
Rushdie was put on a ventilator after being stabbed repeatedly by an Islamic extremist, while a car bomb intended for Dugin took the life of his 29 year-old daughter, Darya Dugina. Russia claims that Ukrainian intelligence was behind the bombing, while Ukraine asserts that it was carried out by Russians dissatisfied with the war.
Yet despite the similarity in the two attacks, their coverage among American conservatives could not have been more different.
In an article published by The Federalist, author Davis Marcus said of Rushdie: “Blasphemers must be allowed to blaspheme. They’re not always wrong.”
Similarly, Stanley Kurtz wrote in National Review that the attack on Rushdie presented a “crisis of free speech” and that, as a result, “freedom, so to speak, is on a ventilator.”
Yet those same publications made no such defense of free speech or condemnation of violence after Dugina’s murder. The Federalist did not even report on the attack, despite its significance in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, while National Review dedicated its coverage of the murder to condemning her father’s geopolitical views.
This double standard is all too common in conservative media. Mainstream conservatives dedicate endless articles to decrying “cancel culture” and the “crisis of free speech,” yet such grace is never extended to anyone to their right.
Last year, Ben Domenech, co-founder of The Federalist, defended a porn star’s role in the conservative movement, calling her a “Florida businesswoman.”
In 2019, former National Review staff writer David French infamously referred to drag queen events for children as a “blessing of liberty.”
Yet when it comes to conservative voices, domestic or foreign, who criticize the liberal world order, these “defenders of free speech” fall suspiciously silent.
For many who consider themselves “free speech absolutists,” people are only free to speak in favor of state department-approved foreign policy and corporate-backed social policy. Criticism of Ukraine, Israel, mass migration, or pro-LGBT conservatives, in their minds, is “far-right” or “conspiracy theories.”
When certain figures in the conservative media are more interested in defending porn stars than condemning the murder of Russian conservative intellectuals, one is left to question if their belief in “free speech” is anything other than a slogan to defend their own brand of center-right liberalism. “Free speech,” it seems, is only a right for voices approved by the establishment.
If someone questions their narrative, that person no longer can count on their free speech being defended by many so-called conservatives. The difference between many right wing journalists and the leftist campus activists they oppose is not as great as they want Americans to believe.
