After more than a decade of liberal-driven censorship and cancel culture, Donald Trump’s second election win was meant to have, in his own words, “saved free speech in America,” starting with an executive order on day one to “stop all government censorship,” which is “intolerable in a free society.” Instead, Trump’s ascent to the presidency is so far seeing a dramatic, across-the-board clampdown on all kinds of First Amendment–protected speech, and a ramping up of government suppression of certain viewpoints.

We tend to associate this with pro-Palestinian activism, and there’s no doubt that’s the area that’s seen the most aggressive actions taken to chill political speech. The Trump administration has, without precedent, asserted the right to unilaterally revoke the legal status of permanent residents and deport them based purely on their criticisms of US foreign policy, have canceled reportedly hundreds of visas on this same basis, and are looking through the social media histories of visa applicants to find any pro-Palestinian speech. They have been assisted by private institutions like universities and businesses, which have sometimes assisted federal agents with making arrests or clamped down on pro-Palestinian speech themselves. This is a shocking assault on freedom of speech, and the Trump administration isn’t even pretending otherwise.

But this barely touches the surface. One visa holder, a French scientist here for a conference, was barred from entering the United States and sent back to France not because of anything pro-Palestine he said. Instead, authorities went through his phone and found private messages he had sent that were critical of Trump’s science policies.

The president had, on his first day in the White House, signed an order to keep out anyone with “hostile attitudes toward [US] citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles.” In keeping with that, the administration just suspended the visa of a former president of Costa Rica who has recently criticized Trump. The message is clear: any criticism of the US president will get you barred from the country, a sharp departure from American political tradition, which vehemently protects, even celebrates, the people’s right to criticize people in power.

It’s not just foreigners. Shortly before what was planned as a massive nonviolent protest against Trump’s policies in the US capital this Saturday, the White House issued an executive order for, among other things, “deploying a more robust” federal and local law enforcement presence in DC and more strictly enforcing laws against “unpermitted disturbances and demonstrations, noise, trespassing.”

Along with a provision making concealed carry of firearms easier in the district, the order clearly creates a more intimidating and potentially dangerous atmosphere for anyone planning to march on the day. The administration denies the order has anything to do with the demonstration, of course. But if Joe Biden’s White House had done the same thing a week before a huge, planned march against vaccine mandates and other pandemic policies, the Right would have had no question about what they were trying to do.

Meanwhile, as first reported by Ken Klippenstein, a recently obtained FBI document suggests the bureau is keeping tabs on Americans’ social media and any hostility to corporate executives that they exhibit on the platforms. The document listed six examples of what the FBI described as “lone actors, unaffiliated with specific ideological groups,” who were “using social media to intimidate high-profile employees” — all of them social media posts that certainly used overheated rhetoric, but were far from actual, substantive threats — posts like “I’ll shoot the ceo of con Edison before I pay that light bill” and “Corrupt CEOs should start watching the news.”

The trouble for the bureau is not only that the document itself states that these posts “often fall short of federal prosecution,” but that rhetoric like this is not uncommon in the United States today thanks to popular rage at a horribly unfair health care system. When the UnitedHealthcare (UHC) CEO Brian Thompson was murdered last year, thousands of frustrated Americans shared their understanding, approval, and even amusement at the terrible crime on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit — with posts drawing many thousands of likes or laughing emoji reactions — as well as in the comments sections of conservative outlets like the Daily Mail, Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and New York Post. I myself saw a Luigi Mangione flag flown from the balcony of a house shortly after the crime.

The point is that, as distasteful and impolite as this might be, if the FBI considers this kind of talk a genuine threat to public safety, it will lead to even more large-scale government surveillance of a massive swath of ordinary Americans, or even attempts to put them in prison for the things they say. Recall that just a month after Trump’s election and the “vibe shift” it brought with it, a Florida mother of three was, at the FBI’s tip-off, charged with the felony of threatening a mass shooting or terrorist act after she said to the health insurance company denying her claim the words the UHC killer engraved on his bullet casings. (Those charges have since been dropped after triggering an outcry.)

This attitude is bleeding over into the Trump administration’s war on vandalism against Tesla, the car company owned by the president’s megadonor and now cutter-in-chief Elon Musk. Needless to say, vandalism and arson are not legitimate speech, but they are also already crimes — which begs the question of why they are now going to be prosecuted as “domestic terrorism,” as the president, his FBI director, and attorney general have all threatened, or, as the DC police are doing, investigating such incidents as hate crimes.

We are already seeing those charged labels being cast beyond actual vandalism to encompass simply speech and activism against the company and its billionaire owner. A Boston professor who advocated for nonviolent picketing of Tesla dealerships nationwide is being labeled a terrorist and accused of stoking violence. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has called for a criminal investigation into “Democrat-leaning NGOs” and other institutions critical of Musk, like Indivisible and Democratic Socialists of America, which she charges “may be involved in the recent Tesla attacks.” How long before anyone else critical of Musk is baselessly accused of the same thing?