Remember when people on the right side of the political spectrum were so incensed about the left's "cancel culture"? It wasn't that long ago. Conservatives railed at how people were being held accountable for things they said by being "cancelled" in one way or another. They called the lefties "snowflakes" who couldn't take what they saw as merely robust and unbridled free speech. Any rightwing free speech should be consequence-free in the real world, they argued at the time.

Well, times have changed. Now it is the right who has fully embraced cancel culture and (because they are in power now) are apparently about to put it on steroids. After the brutal assassination of a conservative activist last week, the right has been cancelling people with a vengeance. Anyone who posted any comment even slightly opposed to Charlie Kirk and what he stood for (some of which was pretty odious and downright racist) is being ferreted out and exposed publicly. People have already lost jobs over such posts. So much for "free speech," eh?

The height of irony in all of this (at least, to me) appeared in a story about a political cartoon that Newsday ran after the assassination, from political cartoonist Chip Bok (who has been a finalist for a Pulitzer for his work, it bears mentioning). The cartoon itself is a bit unnecessarily graphic, as it shows an empty chair in the tent Kirk was in when shot, complete with bloodstains spattered on the chair and the backdrop behind it. At the bottom are the words: "Turning Point USA" with an arrow pointing to the chair.

As with all political cartoons, how you see this image depends on how you interpret politics. The cartoonist (at least to my eye) was trying to make a point -- that America could be at a real "turning point" because of the assassination. Granted, even I thought it was in poor taste (the bloodstains, specifically), but I think I at least received the message the cartoonist was sending (again: this is purely subjective, and I could easily be wrong about that -- I don't know this cartoonist or his work).

Others were outraged. They called for a boycott of Newsday (a newspaper based on Long Island, New York). So Newsday pulled the cartoon down and apologized: "We deeply regret this mistake and sincerely apologize to the family of Charlie Kirk and to all. We made an error in judgment. The cartoon has been removed from our digital platforms."

This assuaged some of the outrage, as the story points out:

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Donald Trump ally, wrote that the "unconscionable" work "trivialized" the death of [Charlie] Kirk. "Cancel Newsday!" he urged on X.

U.S. Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) also joined the outcry that the cartoonist, who is not employed by Newsday, be fired.

Suffolk County Republican Party Chairman Jesse Garcia had demanded a boycott of Newsday until it apologized to Kirk's family, readers of Newsday "and to every American who still believes in freedom of speech." But he accepted the newspaper's mea culpa on Sunday.

Did you catch the irony, there? Calling for boycotting a newspaper because it had somehow trampled on "every American who still believes in freedom of speech" -- while attempting to punish the newspaper for exercising its own freedom of speech -- is a pretty classic example of irony, you've got to admit.

The heart of the matter is that freedom of speech does not equate to being free to say anything you want without consequences. Saying something incredibly offensive is a fully protected constitutional right, to be sure. In fact, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech specifically for such offensive political opinions. That's the guarantee -- that you can say anything you want (short of incitement to violence) without fearing the government will come after you for your words. But the First Amendment does not guarantee that the rest of society won't make you pay a price for truly offensive speech, and it never has.

What is deemed "truly offensive" speech differs to everyone, of course. When cancel culture began (back in the days of #MeToo and other social movements), the left had its own criteria for what constituted speech that was so offensive that it required the speaker to be shunned and ostracized -- by employers, by the public, by the entertainment industry, or by whomever else. And yes, occasionally this got out of hand -- because the people calling for others to be cancelled got a little drunk with the power that it gave them. People were cancelled for things that they probably shouldn't have been so harshly judged for (Al Franken being hounded out of the Senate immediately springs to mind, to me at any rate).

These, of course, were pre-Trumpian times. Donald Trump has avoided paying any sort of political price for channeling his id and heaping all sorts of vile statements on anybody he pleases. The right decided that Trump was their savior from cancel culture, in a way.

Case in point, a Fox News commenter recently called for the execution of homeless people on the airwaves. During a discussion over homeless people, here is what Brian Kilmeade had to say:

[Brian Kilmeade] made that comment during a discussion with fellow anchors Lawrence Jones and Ainsley Earhardt on Wednesday as they were talking about the slaying of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a light-rail train in Charlotte.

"A lot of them don’t want to take the programs. A lot of them don't want to get the help that is necessary," Jones said. "You can't give them a choice. Either you take the resources that we're gonna give you, or you decide that you’re going to be locked up in jail. That’s the way it has to be now."

Then, Kilmeade jumped in: "Or, involuntary lethal injection -- or something. Just kill them."

None of his colleagues challenged this idea when he said it, it bears mentioning. Conservatives have taken to complaining about the left calling them "Nazis," saying it is dangerous and violent rhetoric that is unfounded -- but here we have a conservative commentator essentially advocating for a "final solution" for America's homeless.

Later, Kilmeade made an on-air apology for his words:

But on Sunday, Kilmeade offered a rare on-air apology. "We were discussing the murder of Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte and how to stop these kinds of attacks by homeless, mentally ill assailants, including institutionalizing or jailing such people so they cannot attack again," he said.

"Now during that discussion, I wrongly said they should get lethal injections. I apologize for that extremely callous remark," he added. "I am obviously aware that not all mentally ill, homeless people act as the perpetrator did in North Carolina, and that so many homeless people deserve our empathy and compassion."

Please note that Kilmeade was not fired for advocating a summary death penalty for the homeless. He was not cancelled. Meanwhile, over on MSNBC, contributor Matthew Dowd said something immediately after the shooting (but before Kirk was even confirmed dead) on the air:

"[Charlie Kirk has] been one of the most divisive -- especially divisive -- younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech aimed at certain groups," [Matthew] Dowd said. "And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions."

Dowd was fired by the end of the day. Dowd is not some sort of radical lefty, he is instead "a former political strategist for George W. Bush."

It seems the pendulum has swung, and rightwing outrage is treated more deferentially than leftwing outrage these days. Again, we are in a different time now, in the age of Trump. Donald Trump himself is trying to make lots of political hay out of the whole situation, painting the left as being dangerous and full of rage and inciting violence -- as well as being inhuman by laughing at a conservative being assassinated. But this doesn't really fly, because Trump has such a long, long history of doing exactly that when it comes to lefties (remember Trump and his son Don Junior making jokes about Paul Pelosi being savagely attacked with a hammer?).

What's scary about this is that with Trump back in power -- now unrestrained by any "adults in the room," and with the justice system fully weaponized against his political opponents -- the White House is now apparently considering some sort of pogrom against the left. Perhaps "pogrom" is too strong a word, but they definitely want to do something, and are not exactly being shy talking about it.

This is an affront to the free speech guarantee in the U.S. Constitution. So is Trump using the power of the government to threaten and extort money from news organizations for running stories he doesn't like. Or universities who allow discussions he doesn't like on their campuses. The First Amendment does not protect anyone from society-at-large "cancelling" them -- by boycotts, by kicking them off social media platforms, by pushing employers to fire people, or any of the rest of what "cancel culture" originally meant. The shoe is now indeed on the other foot -- now it is the right who has fully embraced cancel culture, while the left's power to cancel people has shrunk considerably -- but none of it involved the government doing so.

Free speech means free speech for everybody. But it does not (and never has) meant all speech will be free of consequences. Those consequences, however, come from other people exercising their free speech in condemnation, and from public and economic outrage and pressure against employers and others who support such ideas. This is true right up to the point where the rhetoric reaches the level of "shouting fire in a theater" or "fighting words" (or any other incitement to violence). That type of speech is indeed illegal. But siccing the government or the justice department on people simply because their ideas are the opposite of what those in power believe is what the First Amendment is supposed to protect us all from. The White House hasn't (so far, as of this writing) launched any specific official new programs to infringe on people's free speech rights, but when the president is calling for George Soros to be charged with RICO charges just for what he believes in and funds, we're getting awfully close to it.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant