Poll on the First Amendment Finds Wide Support for Censorship Among Democrats
The poll’s lone bright spot is that 90 percent of all voters approve of the First Amendment’s protections, suggesting that, despite support for government control of speech, all hope is not lost.

A new RealClearOpinion Research poll finds Democrats supporting limits on the First Amendment, backing government censorship of social media and the press, an erosion of support for free speech that promises an America where only state-approved views are permitted.
The most telling question about how much the left’s view of dissenting voices has changed reminds me of an encounter my late boss, Rush Limbaugh, had with the famously liberal actor, Alan Alda. When the two met at a party, the actor approached to say hello.
“You know,” Mr. Alda said, “I may not agree with what you say, Rush, but I’d fight and die for your right to say it.” Mr. Limbaugh joked back with thanks for acknowledging his right to exist and think freely, a small snapshot of an America where, in President Obama’s words, we could “disagree without being disagreeable.”
In the RealClear poll, Mr. Alda’s sentiment finds little support. When Democratic respondents were read a version of his sentiment, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” only 31 percent “strongly agreed,” 21 points below Republicans.
The results run contrary to the Democratic Party of years past, embodied by Mr. Alda, which defended even odious points of view. Their belief was that to allow the erosion of some speech would grease the proverbial slippery slope and destroy democracy.
In 1978, the left-wing American Civil Liberties Union put this absolutism into action, backing the right of Nazis to march in Illinois. The Supreme Court ruled for them in National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, upholding their right to speech although it offended the many Holocaust survivors living in Skokie.
Based on the poll, that idealism no longer holds much sway on the left. Fifty-three percent of Democrats surveyed agreed with the 74 percent of Republicans who said speech should be legal “under any circumstances,” but Democrats were almost split down the middle with 47 saying it ought to be legal “only under certain circumstances.”
Those circumstances would be determined by the government, a violation of the First Amendment’s language that “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” By pressuring Big Tech to censor views during the pandemic, the Biden Administration already earned a judge’s rebuke on these legal grounds.
However, Mr. Biden’s actions were in line with his base. Three-in-four Democrats said it was government’s responsibility to limit “hateful” social media posts compared to half of Republicans. The term “hateful,” of course, is broad enough to encompass almost any dissenting
The poll also found evidence of Democrats’ shift in the 52 percent who backed the government censoring social media content on the grounds of “protecting national security.” The results are chilling since everything from climate to TikTok to education have been dubbed national security threats in recent years.
By this standard, some of the left’s greatest victories for government transparency could have been crushed. In 1971, for example, the Pentagon Papers detailed the hidden scope of the Vietnam War, including operations in Cambodia and Laos.
The Papers took the nation by storm and undermined the Nixon Administration’s war effort. In 2006, during the second Iraq War, the New York Times defied President George W. Bush and exposed a secret program that monitored private banking transfers. The government’s stated aim was to track terrorists, meeting the “national security” benchmark with ease.
The poll’s lone bright spot is that 90 percent of all voters approve of the First Amendment’s protections. That number indicates that despite support for government control of speech, all hope is not lost. We may yet get back to an America where even though we disagree with what a fellow citizen says, we are willing to lay down our lives for their right to say it.