MICHAEL BARONE: From impeaching incitement to canceling conservatism.

But a moment’s reflection should have left any believer in free speech feeling queasy about a private firm censoring the president of the United States and preventing him from effectively communicating with citizens over a chosen medium of universal reach. And especially queasy, since a large body of opinion sees this suppression of free speech by Big Tech monopolies not as a one-time exception but as the new rule.

Oliver Darcy of CNN wants its cable rivals to be held “responsible for the lies they peddle.” Law professors are surprisingly open to speech suppression, as Thomas Edsall reported in his New York Times blog. Yale’s Robert Post lamented that “the formation of public opinion is out of control”; California, Irvine’s Rick Hasen lamented “a market failure when it comes to reliable information voters need”; Columbia’s Tim Wu suggested “the weaponization of speech” makes the First Amendment jurisprudence “increasingly obsolete.”

Democratic worthies have been singing the same tune. Michelle Obama took the lead in urging the permanent ban on Trump, which Twitter promptly promulgated. Presidential candidate Andrew Yang called for cable news channels to be required to air competing views. Biden press aide Bill Russo wants Facebook to censor “misleading” information.

The law professors leave it ambiguous who would “control” information and decide what is “reliable information.” But Democrats obviously expect the decisions to be made by folks on their side of the political divide.

The speech restrictions and speech suppression by Twitter, Facebook, Apple, and Google, including the expulsion from the cloud of Twitter competitor Parler, are all intended to benefit the Left and penalize the Right. These firms come as close as nongovernment actors could to canceling if not criminalizing at least certain strands of conservatism.

The left always wants to criminalize its opposition.