President Trump’s Divisive Speech Puts the First Amendment at Risk

When the president’s derogatory rhetoric sparks hostility and even violence, it lays bare a dark side to the United States’ proud liberal approach to speech. The US system offers no obvious way (short of voting a president out of office after four years) to contain a politician whose verbal demonization of rivals and the press provides what some citizens view as a White House invitation to lash out violently against their perceived opponents. Noxious and bigoted attacks are hardly unique to the Donald Trump era. But the president is abdicating his role in two key respects that are eroding confidence not just in his leadership or his ability to keep the country safe but also in the US system of expansive protections for speech. First, President Trump willfully shirks a duty of care to consider how his words will be interpreted and what consequences they could foreseeably trigger. Second, President Trump has refused to use his office to tamp down division in society.

To stop Americans from concluding that broad constitutional protections for free speech have become too dangerous to sustain, it falls to all those in a position to lead to prove that the United States is willing and able to keep such hateful speech in check.

[Suzanne Nossel is executive director of the Pen American Center and was formerly deputy assistant secretary of state for international organizations at the U.S. State Department.]