There's two issues here, and I think we have to dissociate them to better understand each one.

Issue 1:

Could restrictions on free speech actually backfire and hurt the liberal core value?

I think some free speech absolutists argue that allowing some form of anti-liberal speech is necessary so that pro-liberal speech itself is forever guaranteed a place in the cultural debate.

Those believe that facts and reason will prevail, and that everyone will eventually converge on believing in liberalism if its ideas are freely debated against others. And that if you start to censor some speech, you risk having it backfire and either preventing the debate which would have convinced non-liberals into becoming liberals, or you open liberal speech up for being censored and repressed as well.

This type of decision is hard, no one has an absolutely accurate prediction power. To predict which of the two options will in the end be best at promoting and safekeeping liberalism isn't easy to guess, and that's where a lot of debate is happening. That's healthy debate in my opinion, we need to test our prediction models against many brains to hope to make the sensible choice.

The important bit here is that all parties strongly believe in liberalism and really just want to protect it, but they diverge in their prediction of which approach best protects it.

I think for this debate, you have liberals on both sides: Democrats and Republicans, and they share the same core value, but have different ideas of how to best deliver it.

Issue 2:

Some people simply don't share the liberal core value I've been talking about.

Some free speech absolutists aren't really defending liberalism by arguing for free speech, in fact, they wouldn't care if the speech being censored was the liberal one.

What they care about is actually imposing their non-liberal values upon others, they want to break down the liberal democracy and put in place something that better aligns with their values, often religious, or racist, or classist, or nationalist, or selfish, etc.

In any case, they value something above the liberties of others, maximizing Freedom of all, and helping those in need. And they'd want to see society change so the top value is no longer this liberal core value, but their own top value instead.

Now that's a direct attack on the core value, and this one is stirring a lot of controversy I think. It's a reality few are prepared to face in the west, I think most people assumed everyone shares the liberal value, and to see that a very large number of people don't is a surprise, and puts the society they love and cherish at a much bigger risk of collapse then they thought.

Personally, I think at the end of the day, people want what is best for themselves. Liberalism makes the claim that a liberal society is best for everyone, and so it is best for each individual and for all. Meaning it is best for you and for everyone else, what is there not to like?

And I mean, it has proven itself in that regard, the top liberal democracies are probably the most accomplished societies ever in terms of delivering what's best to its citizens.

But in recent years, there's been more and more challenges, poverty is accentuating, international conflicts are arising, pandemics, water shortages, climate changes, oil constraints, recessions, etc.

When that happens, some people think, maybe this isn't in my best interest anymore, especially the tight populous groups, like in the US that would be white Americans for example. As a white American, seeing that things are slowly getting worse for yourself, you might start to think maybe liberalism is no longer best for me? Maybe our forced dominant position of the past would be better for me, and maybe we should bring that back.

I'm using white Americans as one example, an easy one to make, but this is true of all groups. If people no longer believe liberalism is best for them, they will revert to the only other option: forced privilege. You'll band together with the people most like you, and try to strongarm your way into making a society that is best for you and those like you, even if that means it's taking advantage of others.

I like to believe we can work it out, and this is why I said multiculturalism is the holy grail. But maybe we can't, and I wouldn't judge us if we didn't, there is a practical reality to consider: Can we sustain freedom, liberty and fraternity for all? Even as population grows, resources wades, and challenges arise? If that can't be sustained, liberalism will never work, and then it becomes a case of: is it better to evenly split our food but still there isn't enough for anyone to be satiated, or should we let some starve so others can eat to their fullest?

I think for this debate, you also have Democrats and Republicans both no longer believing in the core liberal value, but the more radical left side would want to push for more forced economic oversight, as they see capitalism as the thing that failed to sustain liberalism. While I think on the more radical right side they want more forced social oversight, as they see the loss of the traditional social fabric as responsible for the failure to sustain liberalism. While similarly I think a lot of people on both side Dems and Reps, less radical, still believe that liberalism is sustainable and that force isn't the option, but simply more liberalism is, with minor corrections. If my position hadn't come through yet, I fall in that later category.

Sorry, I know I got a bit dark here, but fundamentally I think this explains the current discourse we are seeing in the US, and across the western countries, its the elephant in the room in my opinion.