The Weimer Republic had extensive hate speech laws on the books, which they even used to prosecute the Nazis in several cases. Not only were those laws ineffective, but the Nazis coopted them to silence opposition.
In contrast the US and the UK, with their free speech absolutism (British hate speech laws weren't put into place until recently), were one of the few major democracies without fascist parties winning any major elections.
There is a good section on this in the book How Democracies Die where they go into detail as to why fascists could not come to power in America before Donald Trump. Basically their argument was that the party structures performed gatekeeping functions and that populists could not even get nominated to a party ticket (even with massive popular support, comparable to that of Donald Trump - they give the example of Henry Ford).
Those gatekeeping functions were lessened after the violent Democratic national convention of '68 (where there was a clash between pro-war and anti-war factions) and primaries became a thing that actually mattered (in 68 Humphrey was selected by backroom insiders who did not participate in a single primary in that cycle, leading to public outcry). However, the gatekeeping effects persisted because of the control the parties still had over advertising channels and the media; that control fell apart post-2000, which setup the conditions that enabled a populist like Donald Trump to actually be elected to the presidency.
So it's not free speech that kept fascists out of power in the U.S., it's institutional gatekeeping (in the 30's and 40's).
Are those institutional gatekeepers the so-called "elites" that the populist demagogues constantly complain about? (To be clear, I'm not being argumentative and I think the premise of party gatekeeping helping to prevent extremists from seizing power is probably accurate)
> Those gatekeeping functions were lessened after the violent Democratic national convention of '68
This point does not pass the smell test. Since 1968 the United States has become a vastly more tolerant, liberal, open and free society than prior to that point. You'd have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to say that the US is more prone to fascism than it was 50 years ago.
Free speech absolutism was no defense against fascism - the Nazi Party was prominent in both the US and UK, to use your examples, during the 1930s. It just never quite tipped into power, but you can see from the rise of Trumpism that that didn't hold true this time.
(the giant murals of George Washington and the talk about "job-stealing refugees" is particularly apropos given the current atmosphere of the Trumpist faction)
It is obviously correct that once social norms have reached the breaking point that hate speech laws can become a cudgel used to further hate speech. The goal is to keep it from reaching that point.
It is in fact probably correct to say that in either approach once the social norms have reached the breaking point, that either positive or negative freedoms can be weaponized. Freedom of speech can be used to rally a lynch mob, and hate speech laws can be used to oppress a minority, once you have reached the point where a hateful party has widespread social acceptance and control of a sufficient number of the political levers of power.
In general though it is also not correct to say that the US has complete free-speech absolutism. Actually planning to lynch someone, for example, is not protected free speech. The argument for further restrictions is that those lines may not be correctly drawn by our forefathers - why should actually planning to lynch Tom Brown be illegal, but the KKK rallying to lynch somebody be legal and protected, as long as they don't name a specific name in advance? Why should arguing that people should be lynched in general without the specific intention to do so today be protected? There are many places we could concievably draw the line without really impacting anyone's actual freedoms to do anything other than incite hatred and ultimately inciting violence and death.
This doesn't really pass the smell test. I know very little about Hitler, but the small amount I do know is Hitler was found guilty of treason and put in jail for 5 years, during which he wrote Mein Kampf [1]. It seems pretty obvious to me if he had been put to death (the ultimate form of censorship) the holocaust wouldn't have happened.
You also dodge the central question - Do you believe Hitler had a protected right to free speech worth defending?
I may or may not read your response because I don't believe you're arguing in good faith though.
In contrast the US and the UK, with their free speech absolutism (British hate speech laws weren't put into place until recently), were one of the few major democracies without fascist parties winning any major elections.