Conservatives believe that they are involved in a good-faith discussion with another group who may have a different point of view but are ultimately in search of a shared truth that society can agree and build upon. Progressives understand that they are involved not in a discussion, but in a struggle for power.

Leftists know that their main goal is not to convince others through reasoned discussion, but to obtain power in service of advancing an agenda that they see as the non-negotiable truth. '

When America was more conservative in its outlook, a rationale was needed for the left to enter the nation’s institutions and advance ideologies that were obviously destructive to the social order. The left has always been about the abolition of family, faith, and property and has never been very good about hiding it. Free speech was never a core value of the left; it was simply a convenient vehicle for the furtherance of their agenda, which was made even more effective by its ability to camouflage itself in existing American values. Leftists may have spent a lot of time preaching about free speech in the past, but this was always in the service of forcing their ideology into the public consciousness. They were willing to adopt any rhetorical tool that allowed them to do so, and free speech simply happened to be tactically convenient at the time.

What progressives are involved in is not hypocrisy, but a reassessment of tactics now that they no longer need to operate from a position of weakness. Progressives now have the opportunity to wield the tools of the strong, and they longer need to pay lip service to the marketplace of ideas. 

While many on the right and center may see this as a sign of weakness and hypocrisy that will take down the progressive movement, this is, in truth, a show of strength. The left believes that it has achieved cultural hegemony to the point where it no longer needs to pretend to care about these values or the true believers that it will shed by abandoning them. This is not weakness, but a flex on one’s enemies: a vulgar display of power.