“There is free speech and then there is hate speech.”

With those ten words, Pam Bondi disqualified herself from holding office as the attorney general. In that moment, she sounded like every other young woman who does not know the meaning of free speech.

There is no exception for “hate speech” in the First Amendment. It states,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Starting in the 1980s, the term “hate speech” first gained traction in universities, where campus speech codes were hotly debated. At the same time, self-anointed guardians of civil rights, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, started to bludgeon their critics with the term, labeling them as “haters”. Mainstream media was quick to adopt the phrase.

By the 1990s, it became a common term used in European and Canadian legal circles. What followed was the passage of laws prohibiting incitement to “hatred.” The U.S., because of its guarantee of free speech in the First Amendment, was spared.

With the rise of social media, the term “hate speech” became more prevalent. Its usage spiked in 2016 after the election of Trump, when Democrats started to call for a curtailment of what they deemed to be extremist rhetoric and misinformation. It reached the apogee of popularity as the Biden administration coerced online platforms to censor content that it found offensive and therefore “hateful.” With the acquisition of Twitter by Musk and the reelection of Trump, the plans of proponents of “hate speech” and their censorship have been set back.

It is because of this history of the term “hate speech” that I find Pam Bondi’s remark to be so egregious. I am not sure how Bondi could walk back her remark. It opened a window into her mind for us to see that she had completely internalized the concept.

Image from Grok.