Which is why we will need to tread all over them. I know you think you can't get to virtue that way; that's yet to be determined (no great historical analogues for 21st century America). What seems certain is that we can't get there without it. They don't change their tune unless it hurts them. And the old line about "first they came for the communists . . . then they came for me and there was nobody left to speak" does nothing for them unless they think there is a chance that they will ever come for them. That's why the line, "free speech affects all of us" carries no weight for MAGA. They can't think that abstractly.
The only way they will learn about a free press is to shut down Fox News and right-wing media. Then they might understand its importance. Hopefully we can teach the lesson quickly enough to pull back from the brink before that becomes the new normal. And then we need about 10 years of uninterrupted rule to re-establish our norms as norms.
In other words, we need reconstruction. The north recognized that after the Civil War.