Since Donald Trump’s return to office at the beginning of 2025, much has been made of the idea of the rise of a “woke Right.” Now that they have the governmental — and perhaps even cultural — whip hand, right-wingers are now indulging in the same sorts of speech policing behaviors that came to characterize the Left in the decade or so before the 2024 election. This has most recently come up as a result of high-profile terminations (or calls for termination) in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing. The specific allegation is that, after years of complaining about left-wing “cancel culture,” those on the political Right are indulging in their own version of it now that they have the opportunity.

Many have now responded with mutual accusations of hypocrisy, while others smugly declare themselves the last independent-minded centrists still free of ideological baggage. But is the underlying picture accurate?