That's a nuance without consequence. Barr is a random example that came to mind.
The larger point is that it's been very difficult for a while to be a conservative in media, or academia or in the workplace, due to the ease with which you were canceled. The reason people stick with principles because it helps them and the other side - it's a high ground maneuver.
But once you feel like you are consistently deprived of all the benefits of that principle, you are no longer inclined to uphold it.
So in general I would expect conservatives to now attack via pathways they were previously above. The fact that people are surprised they are getting fired for celebrating Kirk's murder is one sign of how benign the conservatives had been about that stuff. I think that's over now.
Absolutely not, I will not concede this point at all.
People deciding you are intolerable is not the same as the government putting pressure on your employer.
You don't have to conceded anything. You think conservatives can't point to examples of the government squeezing them, under the guise of COVID stuff, DEI requirements and the like? Or they don't think there was pressure from the government to shape the news?
I want to agree with you, I am just saying it doesn't matter what you and I agree on. Conservatives have clearly seen and felt the principles not applying to their benefits and they are over it. Whether you or I can agonize about a particular misapplication of a particular principle doesn't matter.
There's also a false equivalence, because when the government is on the same team as all the big tech and media companies, it doesn't have to threaten anyone into silencing speech the team doesn't like. It just happens, and then everyone pretends it's organic.
I'd be glad to have a free speech conversation about this with anyone who actually cares about free speech, but that doesn't include anyone who spent the last decade cheering every time someone they disagreed with got his livelihood taken away. One TV network dumping one "comedian" who was well past his sell-by date is a tiny, tiny counter-trend to what's been going on for years.
The larger point is that it's been very difficult for a while to be a conservative in media, or academia or in the workplace, due to the ease with which you were canceled. The reason people stick with principles because it helps them and the other side - it's a high ground maneuver.
But once you feel like you are consistently deprived of all the benefits of that principle, you are no longer inclined to uphold it.
So in general I would expect conservatives to now attack via pathways they were previously above. The fact that people are surprised they are getting fired for celebrating Kirk's murder is one sign of how benign the conservatives had been about that stuff. I think that's over now.