Right wing billionaire Elon Musk, enemy of unions and any kind of regulation on wealthy businessmen, piously styles himself a First Amendment absolutist any time the increasing hate speech on his social media site is reported on. Musk and his determined ilk peddle the myth that white men are viciously singled out as the most oppressed victims in society. If hate-filled lies that tend to stoke violence are limited by the government, say by requiring warnings to be posted on inflammatory conspiracy posts with no basis in fact (as finally happened on Twitter just before the January 6 riot), Musk and his persecuted minority are placed at a great disadvantage in the war for everything.

The freedom to lie, and enrage alienated masses with a long list of grievances real and imagined, is crucial to the right wing’s cherished dream, so close they can taste it, of a tiny minority of our greatest and most deserving citizens controlling everybody else now and forever. Hammer on woke elites, majoritarian tyranny, blood drinking pedophiles, eternally scheming Jews, murderous Muslim fanatics, homosexual groomers, raping, infectious disease-carrying, blood poisoning, illegal immigrants and so on and you have a chance of keeping the lynch mob whipped up enough to do your bidding. Truth and accurate reporting are these guy’s worst nightmare.

If your chance of winning an argument depends on lying, as is the case almost any time you have a conflict with someone who can never be wrong, and your ability to lie is being limited, in the name of some squishy abstract principle like “fairness,” you will fight like hell or you won’t have a grandiose dream of perfection and enraged superiority anymore.