From the introduction to his April 24 post, which is much worth reading in its entirety:
Imagine this scenario.
The interior minister of a country that considers itself a democracy reports scores of citizens to the police for making critical statements about her while she is in office. Many of them are given hefty monetary fines or even prison sentences.
In protest, a journalist publishes a satirical meme. It features a real photograph of the interior minister holding a sign that is digitally altered so that, apocryphally, it reads: "I hate freedom of speech."
As if to prove the point, the interior minister reports the journalist to the police. He is duly prosecuted and, after a brief trial, given a seven-month suspended prison sentence.
Would you say that this nation has a problem with free speech?
If you do, then you should be very concerned about what has happened in Europe over the last few years. For, as you may have suspected, this scenario is not fictional; rather, it depicts the true facts of a recent German court case—one that is far less of an outlier than most otherwise well-informed observers recognize….
Mounk goes on to offer many examples and analysis, and closes with:
