Once a bastion of free speech, the ACLU faces an identity crisis
It&#x27;s not ACLU&#x27;s identity crisis, it&#x27;s the Left&#x27;s identity crisis. Civil rights are checks on government and institutional powers. When the left gained a massive institutional power and a lot of governmental power, it turned out it doesn&#x27;t really like this power to be checked and challenged. It&#x27;s one thing to fight for the free speech of people who are maybe abhorrent, but ultimately their speech won&#x27;t change much, it&#x27;s another thing when the speech is by your political rival, the fate of the power distribution in the nation depends on it, and you have all the tools to shut it down. It is hard to resist the temptation, and the Left didn&#x27;t even try to resist it for long - in fact, they embraced it. Turns out, the hard question question wasn&#x27;t &quot;can you defend the Nazi&#x27;s free speech&quot;, but &quot;can you defend the Republican&#x27;s free speech, if it could cost your favorite candidate the election?&quot;. Looks like the major part of the Left decided the right answer is &quot;no&quot;, and winning is more important that preserving the liberties. After all, if the good guys are in power, who needs their powers to be checked? Only the bad guys.