E-Pluribus | July 20, 2026
A senator rebrands antitrust as free speech. Germany jails grandpas over Pinocchio memes. A WNBA coach apologizes for stating the obvious.
A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:
Joe Holleman: Eric Schmitt joins Democrat senator to loosen Google’s grip on search engines
Missouri’s Sen. Eric Schmitt has been gunning for Google since his days as the state’s attorney general back in 2020, and now he’s found an unlikely ally: Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar.
The two have teamed up on legislation aimed at stopping large search engines from paying distributors like Apple to lock in default status — a practice they argue amounts to illegal monopoly maintenance. What’s notable is the framing. Schmitt isn’t just making an antitrust case; he’s making a censorship case:
The proposed law would prohibit large search companies from blocking smaller ones through the practice of paying distributors, such as Apple, to make Google the user’s default choice — a practice that both senators say violates antitrust laws by illegally maintaining a monopoly.
“Big Tech monopolies are shaping what information Americans see and censoring free speech,” Schmitt said in a statement.
Klobuchar noted in a statement that curbing the tech giants’ practices is something “that both the Biden and Trump Administrations have said are necessary.”
James Rothwell: Inside the dystopian world of Germany’s free speech crackdown
Dr. Rainer Zitelmann has written some 30 books cataloguing the rise of fascism. So there’s a special irony in the fact that German police investigated him under a law banning Nazi symbolism: over a meme in which he compared Vladimir Putin to Hitler unfavorably.
At the Telegraph, James Rothwell surveys the wider crackdown that swept Zitelmann up, one that’s produced a string of cases too absurd to be satire: a pensioner investigated for calling the chancellor “Pinocchio,” another raided for calling a former vice-chancellor a “dummy,” a man fined €2,000 for calling Friedrich Merz a “lying Fritz.”
The 69-year-old found out the offending social media post was a meme about Adolf Hitler. But it was one in which he criticised the Nazi dictator and compared his invasion of Czechoslovakia to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“It was crystal clear the post was negative ... I was saying that Putin is so bad he is like Hitler,” he explains from his study in Berlin, surrounded by hundreds of books about the rise of fascism, including his own doctoral thesis. “The comparison only works if you think Hitler was evil.”
He lets out an ironic chuckle at the absurdity of it all: after decades of excoriating the Nazis in his books, a mere click of a mouse led to accusations of him being one.
Dr Zitelmann is one of thousands of Germans who have been threatened with fines or prison sentences for social media posts that fall foul of the country’s political speech laws, which are unusually stringent for an EU member state.
Stephen Beslic: ‘Destroying free speech and American culture’ - Jason Whitlock blasts WNBA over Angel Reese controversy
Toronto Tempo coach Sandy Brondello called Angel Reese a “protected species” while venting about a foul call — a phrase some read as carrying a racial charge — and the league handed her a one-game suspension after she apologized. Brondello, an Australian, maintained the line was an emotional outburst rather than a targeted slight.
Sports columnist turned conservative commentator Jason Whitlock saw the whole episode as a case study in a much bigger problem: a culture that’s decided the correct response to an off-the-cuff remark is public contrition and league discipline.
Jason Whitlock criticized the WNBA and Angel Reese after Toronto Tempo head coach Sandy Brondello apologized for comments she made during Friday’s 111-92 loss to the Atlanta Dream.
Whitlock viewed the controversy as part of a larger debate, arguing Brondello should not have felt compelled to apologize.
The broadcast captured Brondello directing her frustration toward the officials after Nyara Sabally went down with an injury following contact with Reese. Sabally was called for a foul on the play, prompting Brondello to describe Reese as a “protected species,” words which some argued carried a racial undertone.
The Dream star obviously felt the same way, based on her tweet after the game.
Around X
The UK government’s scientists have found a new category of wrongthink: a Government Office for Science report brands anti-trans views as “misinformation,” complete with a framework for using “psychological inoculation,” pre-emptively exposing citizens to “weakened” versions of the offending opinions.
Meanwhile, DK (@1Nicdar) sums up the last several years of media coverage of the U.S. president: accuse him of attacking free speech, then decline to air his address to the nation.
The proposed community note rightly observes that media outlets are not obligated to air the speech. But falling back on such a legal technicality is a bit rich coming from news orgs ostensibly committed to the vigorous exchange of ideas.
On a more hopeful note, Greg Lukianoff visited Florida State University to make the case that free speech may be humanity’s greatest invention for peace, a the technology that lets people settle their deepest disagreements with words instead of violence.
