“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” – Winston Churchill

Jonathan Turley has not merely stumbled in his praise of J.D. Vance’s atrocious ahistoric Munich speech – he has trampled the truth before hurrying off as if nothing had happened.

The infamously extremist right-wing law professor fraudulently celebrates Vance’s performance as “Churchillian” while ignoring plain and documented facts about how the Nazi party weaponized free speech vulnerabilities to seize power.

Let us state the historical record with Churchill-like clarity to rebuke the law professor’s misappropriation:

The Nazi party systematically exploited Article 118 of the Weimar Constitution, which guaranteed that “Every German has the right, within the limits of the general laws, to express his opinion by word, writing, printing, picture, or otherwise.”

They recognized unregulated speech, especially when applied through new technology, as their most potent weapon against democracy itself.

Through newspapers like Der Stürmer, they spread vicious antisemitic propaganda while facing minimal consequences. Hitler couldn’t be tried for treason after the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 because he transformed the trial into a propaganda platform to expand his hateful rhetoric. Hitler couldn’t be banned from speaking in 1925-1927 because every time someone tried to stop him the party falsely claimed it was unfair persecution of their “truth”. Any and all attempts at restriction were spun into bogus evidence that “the establishment” feared the benefits of extreme free speech.

Upon seizing power in 1933, they immediately crushed the very extreme freedoms they had so completely exploited. The strategy to take the free speech into a plan to murder everyone who dared to speak, had worked perfectly – absolute free speech nicely enabled their rise to destroy it entirely.

This isn’t disputed history.

It’s not a matter of legal interpretation.

It’s extensively documented fact that the Nazis weaponized democratic freedoms to destroy democracy itself. This is like saying it’s a fact that cholera used the free flow of water pumps to kill people who were just trying to get a drink. If you think cholera needs to be in water for hydration to work, you might just be a Nazi enabler.

And so here stands Turley, a law professor with apparently no historical expertise, praising Vance for using the exact same Nazi propaganda techniques of the 1920s to attack the German laws specifically designed to prevent another Nazi rise to power.

The gross perversion of history is breathtaking. Consider:

1. Vance deploys the same victim narrative about speech that Hitler deployed, yet Turley bizarrely shifts Vance comparisons to Hitler’s enemy Churchill
2. Turley attacks European speech protections, completely ignoring all lessons learned from Nazi Germany
3. Turley celebrates Nazi propaganda and rhetoric techniques used to destroy democracy, while claiming he means to defend democracy

The intellectual betrayal happens in Munich, no less, a circus performance for the very city where Western appeasement of fascists led to catastrophe. The same city where Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch launched his rise with exploitation of weak regulations on speech.

Turley’s column isn’t just wrong. It’s dangerous. It legitimizes authoritarian propaganda techniques while it also attacks the very safeguards meant to prevent Nazi history from repeating.

This is how democracy goes undefended – when respected voices distort history to serve their agenda, when intellectuals praise the tactics of fascism while wrapping themselves in false claims of defending against fascism.

I know a famous lawyer who would call this the “prerogative” effect of Nazism.

Musk is a self-described free-speech advocate, but he frequently attacks publications and individuals who have spoken out against his actions. He has also been accused of blocking accounts on X of people who have disagreed with him.

Churchill would recognize what’s happening and would thrash Turley for preaching nonsense. He saw it before. In his own words about those who enable fascism’s rise:

Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong—these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.

The real “threat from within” isn’t those who learned history’s lessons. It’s those who deliberately distort that history to repeat it.

We must speak truth to power, especially when that power comes wrapped in academic credentials and false claims about defending freedom. The stakes are too high for silence.

History speaks clearly. We must not only listen, but act.

Oh, but who exactly is this professor who thinks Vance parroting Hitler is a good thing? Turley is a well-known propagandist using his academic credentials and bogus claims of moderation to mask extreme right-wing positions as normal.

Jonathan Turley Wants Everyone To Chill Out And Just Trust The Guy Who Speaks Fondly Of Hitler

This makes him more dangerous than an honest and open extreme figure, as he provides false intellectual cover for authoritarianism while merely pretending to care about democracy.

• Calls himself “longtime liberal” while almost always exclusively criticizing liberals
• A regular Fox News talking head on legal opinions who supports Trump/MAGA positions
• Testified against impeachment of Trump
• Uses writing for The Hill to consistently push extreme-right frames
• Claims to defend “traditional liberal values” when pushing authoritarian tactics
• Refers to himself as “reasonable centrist” when presenting extremist views

History is crystal clear. Nazis seized power using free speech. And then they shut it off for others, doubling the proof they knowingly exploited free speech as a lethal weapon.

The Weimar Republic emerged from World War I with remarkably progressive free speech protections that invited abuse and attack. Article 118 of its constitution guaranteed freedom of opinion and expression in language that would soon prove fatally vulnerable to exploitation by hate groups.

Every German has the right, within the limits of the general laws, to express his opinion by word, writing, printing, picture, or otherwise. No restriction of this right by any labor or employment relationship may be imposed, and no one may be disadvantaged for exercising this freedom.

Censorship shall not take place, though restrictions for cinemas may be established by law. Also lawful are the fight against obscene and indecent literature, as well as legal measures for the protection of youth at public events and displays.

The Nazi party recognized these speech protections as their most powerful weapon in their arsenal that would prevent the Weimar from stopping their lethal assaults. They used newspapers like Der Stürmer to spread vicious antisemitic propaganda and nationalist rhetoric, with minimal consequences for damage caused. When they did face restrictions, Hitler spun any and all resistence to his attacks as evidence of the “superior race” under persecution.

The J.D. Vance free speech victim narrative, presented in his 2025 Munich speech asking Nazis to be put back in power, was central to the 1920s Nazi strategy to destroy democracy from within existing channels. Or as conservative columnist John Podhoretz just put it:

I’m glad Margaret Brennan blamed free speech for the rise of the Nazis.

He’s glad because her objective statement of truth is like chumming the waters for the Nazi disinformation sharks who love to abuse free speech. They’re all lining up to attack Brennan with illogical and personal attacks just for her daring to speak up honestly and openly about reality.

When Hitler was tried for treason after the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, he transformed his trial into an expansive propaganda platform. Rather than defending himself against the charges, he barked out lengthy political diatribes to portray himself as the only patriot in Germany and one who was being silenced by shadowy forces that didn’t respect his free speech extremism. The lenient sentence he received greatly amplified this toxic pivot and message.

The pattern thus rose to significance during 1925-1927 when again several German states attempted to temporarily ban Hitler from abuse of others in public, as he should have been stopped all along. The Nazi party seized on any and all restrictions of their hate speech as damning proof that the establishment feared their “truth”. Their explosive false victim narrative around demanding extreme free speech undeniably became intertwined with a sudden militant rise of Nazism.

Brownshirt “SA” violent thugs (frequently referenced by the German “AfD” party as their inspiration) at this point were physically attacking meetings of political opponents in stark contradiction to bombastic free speech proclamations, which their supporters more than willingly overlooked.

By contrast in America, at this same time, Silvershirt (Nazi) meetings were being physically attacked and broken up by militant Jewish gangs, which proved hard-nosed censorship of hate groups in America worked. One of the main reasons Nazism didn’t rise as easily in America was this implementation of Popper’s tolerance paradox. Notably, directly and forcibly restricting extremist speech was the American thing to do, whereas in Germany Nazism benefited from far more lax restrictions. Allowed ultimate freedom to speak and speak and speak, they abused that right all the way until they seized absolute power.

Joseph Goebbels proved particularly skilled at this manipulation game of free speech for me, not for thee. When Nazi publications faced temporary bans in 1931-1932, he again framed it as evidence of a vast conspiracy against the German people and demanded unrestricted speech or violence. The Nazis positioned themselves as the martyrs for free expression and its staunchest defenders, while clearly preventing speech of others.

The cruel irony became tragically clear once they seized power in 1933 and officially removed all the free speech they had claimed could never be taken away. They immediately moved to eliminate the very freedoms they had exploited, using the Reichstag Fire Decree and Enabling Act to crush opposition newspapers and implement comprehensive censorship.

The cynical strategy had worked, because of free speech – they had expanded vulnerability at every turn by demanding extreme free speech long enough to flip and destroy all free speech.

This history offers a sobering lesson in how anti-democratic forces have and will continue to weaponize democratic freedoms. The Nazis understood that claims of censorship and persecution would resonate with the public’s belief in free expression, such that they could use it as the primary vulnerability to enable their destruction of the state. They exploited this sentiment while simultaneously working intending to slam the door they said had to always remain open.

Their success hinged on this cynical double game – championing free speech until they had power to eliminate it entirely.

Let me now analyze the coordinated disinformation campaign evident in JD Vance’s social media posts. He demonstrates a conspiracy of historical revisionism that mirrors Nazi propaganda techniques.

Three accounts, shown below, deploy a classic military-grade disinformation tactic: deliberately conflating two distinct historical facts to obscure an uncomfortable truth. Specifically, they substitute the historically documented fact that “the Nazi party exploited free speech protections to seize power” with the absurd strawman of “free speech caused ABC” instead.

You say free speech gave rise to Nazism. JD Vance says you look like an idiot for claiming that free speech causes cancer, which you never said.

This fallacy tactic of substitution serves a clear purpose for Vance. By misrepresenting the factual argument as claiming free speech directly caused some other event instead, he avoids confronting the documented historical reality: the Nazi party strategically weaponized democratic freedoms, particularly free speech protections, as a calculated means to achieve power – only to immediately eliminate those same freedoms once in control.

The nature of these three accounts using identical rhetorical tactics to distort the same historical truth, suggests they are running an organized propaganda campaign to replicate the very techniques they seek to obscure.

It is particularly concerning to see influential public figures deliberately misrepresenting a crucial historical lesson about how democratic freedoms are weaponized against democracy itself.

1. Michael Brendan
   • Truth: Nazis exploited free speech protections in Weimar Germany to gain the power that later enabled them to conduct the Holocaust.
   • His Tweet: “This is the first time I’ve heard the theory that the Holocaust wasn’t conducted with gas chambers but with free speech zones.”
   • Analysis: No one claimed the Holocaust was “conducted with free speech.” He is deliberately misrepresenting a point to avoid admitting the hard truth: Nazis used free speech to seize power.
2. JD Vance
   • Truth: The media accurately stated that Nazis exploited free speech protections to gain power, then eliminated those rights.
   • His Tweet: “Does the media really think the holocaust was caused by free speech?”
   • Analysis: Again, nobody said what he is claiming, a logical fallacy (strawman). Vance deliberately confuses “Nazis used free speech to seize power” with “free speech caused the Holocaust” to deflect from the historical hard truth that Nazis weaponized free speech to seize power
3. Elon Musk
   • Truth: Nazis exploited free speech until they gained power, then immediately crushed it. The fact that they immediately eliminated free speech upon taking power demonstrates they knew exactly how vulnerable free speech is to abuse for seizing power and always planned to deny it to others.
   • His Tweet: “One of the first things Hitler did upon gaining power was apply aggressive censorship”
   • Analysis: This actually proves the original point, essentially the Nazis came to power because of free speech and why they heavily targeted it once in power. If free speech wasn’t how the Nazis came to power, the Nazis would not have shut down free speech. Elon Musk in fact has a long history of promoting Nazism as interchangable with “free speech extremism”.

This coordinated response demonstrates pre-planned application of historical Nazi propaganda techniques while attempting to obscure those very same techniques. It does actually mean these three accounts are intentionally and very actively promoting Nazism. But this should surprise no one.