The recent victories of democratic-socialist candidates in in Tuesday’s New York City primaries begs the question- is there a connection between the growing acceptance of government intervention in economic affairs and an increasing willingness to limit free speech in the name of social justice, safety, or combating misinformation?

At first glance, the two issues appear unrelated.  Most voters who supported the democratic-socialist candidates were motivated by economic concerns such as housing affordability, healthcare costs, student debt, and income inequality—not by a desire to restrict speech.  However, beneath these policy preferences may lie a broader ideological shift: a growing belief that government should play a larger role in solving society’s problems.

America’s political culture was built on a healthy skepticism of concentrated power. The Founders believed that government, like all human institutions, was fallible and therefore required limits.  Free speech was considered essential because no individual or institution could be trusted to determine which ideas were true and which were false.  The remedy for bad ideas was more debate, not censorship.

Increasingly, however, many liberal political leaders are embracing a different view.  Speech is no longer seen merely as expression but as something capable of causing harm.  Consequently  concepts such as hate speech, misinformation, disinformation, and emotional safety are frequently cited as reasons to restrict certain viewpoints.

In parts of Europe, this trend has already produced speech laws that would be unconstitutional in the United States.  Britain has experienced a sharp increase in arrests for offensive online communications, while German authorities have conducted police actions against individuals accused of illegal online speech.  Similar debates have emerged on American college campuses, where speech codes and disinvitation campaigns target opinions deemed offensive or harmful.

The concern expressed by legal scholars is not that democratic socialism automatically leads to censorship.  Rather, it is that both movements spring from the same underlying assumption: that society’s problems can and should be solved through greater institutional authority.  And once government is viewed as the primary instrument for creating economic fairness and social justice, it becomes easier to justify restricting ideas that are perceived as standing in the way of those goals.  The logic is clear: if certain ideas are harmful, and harmful ideas produce harmful outcomes, then government is justified in limiting those ideas.

This doesn’t mean that every supporter of democratic socialism opposes free speech.  I believe most do not; but at the same time, reading the online posts from the recent NY primary winners tell us a different story.

History also suggests that whenever political movements become convinced that they possess the moral answers to society’s problems, dissenting opinions are increasingly viewed not as obstacles to progress that must be removed.

The danger then, is not merely economic.  It is cultural.  The concern is not whether democratic-socialist policies will influence economic decisions they will, to the voters’ chagrin, but whether they will influence attitudes toward free speech itself.

Economic policies can be changed through the political process.  Free speech is a different story.  The issue is not simply socialism versus capitalism; it is whether our society remains committed to the principle that even unpopular, offensive, or dissenting viewpoints have the right to be heard.