After years of being told that free speech is harmful and dangerous, many young people are virtual speech phobics — demanding that opposing views be silenced as "triggering" or even forms of violence. Now a Pew poll shows just how much ground we have lost, including the emergence of the Democratic Party as a virulent anti-free speech party. Pew found that "Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are much more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to support the US government taking steps to restrict false information online (70% vs. 39%)."

I was raised in a politically active Democratic family in Chicago. Free speech was viewed as one of the defining values of the party and championed across campuses in the country.