The fact that conspiracy theorists, election deniers and political opportunists peddling misinformation are allowed to spew their nonsense so freely in today’s world might be frustrating — but it’s also a reassuring reminder that free speech still exists in our increasingly illiberal world. 

With the ReAwaken America Tour headed to North Las Vegas in August, the city is facing backlash for its decision to lease space to the cavalcade of extremist speakers. Some critics are claiming the city has no business giving a platform to such purveyors of nonsense by leasing out its public venue for the event.

The tour, which has been described as “part conservative Christian revival, part QAnon expo and part political rally,” will host some of the most explosively antagonistic far-right speakers imaginable. Conspiracist Alex Jones, countless QAnon celebrities and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell are just a few of the provocative personalities expected to make an appearance — and the event will largely be the kind of intellectual absurdity we’ve come to expect from the most deranged elements of modern politics.

According to a report in The Nevada Independent, criticism of the event represents the “ongoing debate over free speech and the role governments play in allowing extreme and potentially dangerous rhetoric to propagate.” 

However, “allowing” such speech is precisely the role of government — even when the speech in question offends the sensibilities of mainstream (or reasonable) members of the public.

After all, First Amendment freedoms aren’t dependent on speech being reasonable, popular or even ideologically coherent. And the ability to peacefully assemble at a public venue is a central component of exercising that constitutional right — even for fear mongers, racists, conspiracy theorists and peddlers of misinformation. 

To the city’s credit, that’s essentially what officials argued when the public backlash first began, with a spokesperson saying the city does “not discriminate on the basis of political affiliation, race, color, religion, gender, gender expression, age, national origin, or disability.” 

Of course, not everyone was pleased with the city’s commitment to ideological impartiality. 

“That’s a nice statement of nothingness,” said Kristine Schachinger, a Las Vegas resident quoted by The Nevada Independent. 

“Using public grounds to allow a group that promotes hatred and insurrection, and denial of the worst mass shooting in American history should not be allowed,” Schachinger said, referencing Alex Jones’ absurd claims that the Oct. 1, 2017, shooting in Las Vegas was a “phony” massacre scripted by “Democrats and their Islamic allies.”

However, even abhorrent political loons have the right to access public venues — and North Las Vegas’ decision to lease space to the coming convention of conspiracists reflects the obligation First Amendment principles place upon government. After all, abhorrent speech isn’t merely “allowed” on public grounds —  public grounds are where such speech is most strongly protected in American law. 

To be perfectly clear, private companies have significant discretion to bar certain speech on their own property or in relation to their own professional dealings — which is why, much to the consternation of partisan opportunists, social media giants are free to police speech on their own platforms and the state of Colorado cannot force a website designer to create messages celebrating same-sex marriages. 

However, while private entities would be well within their rights to refuse the convention of conspiracists use of their property, government-run venues enjoy significantly less latitude in this regard. First Amendment protections, after all, explicitly prohibit the government from choosing which voices have access to the public square.

In other words, the government’s “role” in the propagation of unsavory speech is, specifically, to allow it — which is precisely what North Las Vegas is doing by leasing out its venue. 

And that should be seen as a win for principled defenders of free expression. After all, tolerating such congregations in a public venue is a critical dimension of protecting broader free-speech rights for the rest of us. That’s why the ACLU, for example, once proudly fought to allow Nazis in Skokie, Illinois, to organize a march, despite most Americans (as well as two eccentric blues musicians) staunchly objecting to such a gathering. 

At its core, “free speech” protections don’t exist only for the benefit of speech we find generally acceptable — and the public square isn’t reserved only for mainstream opinions. It’s for this reason the city’s decision to lease a public venue to a convention of conspiratorial QAnon extremists should actually give a strange sense of reassurance to defenders of the traditionally liberal value of free and open expression.

Defending free speech, after all, means occasionally defending the right for Nazis to march in Illinois and conspiracy peddlers to congregate in North Las Vegas — even if we might abhor the messages sure to emanate from such unhinged gatherings of extremists.Michael Schaus is a communications and branding expert based in Las Vegas, Nevada, and founder of Schaus Creative LLC — an agency dedicated to helping organizations, businesses and activists tell their story and motivate change. He has more than a decade of experience in public affairs commentary, having worked as a news director, columnist, political humorist, and most recently as the director of communications for a public policy think tank. Follow him at SchausCreative.com or on Twitter at @schausmichael.