“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:
- Vance deploys the same victim narrative about speech that Hitler deployed, yet Turley bizarrely shifts Vance comparisons to Hitler’s enemy Churchill
- Turley attacks European speech protections, completely ignoring all lessons learned from Nazi Germany
- 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
