> I'm not a fan of Trump's governance, but none of those people were investigated for "criticizing Trump's decisions".

Is that a joke? These people would never have been investigated if they were not critical towards Trump. The only reason they are investigated is because Trump is taking revenge on them for the crime of saying that Trump is wrong.

Again, this does not happen in Europe. There are political enemies, and they fight between each others. But you would struggle to find 2 political allies, with a president saying positive about the other person on Monday, and then on Friday calling for this person to be investigated because the other person has said something they did not like.

> Poland, ...

These are not cases of a president retaliating on a rival that criticized them. These are corruption, or fights between political parties, or tax evasion, ... Nothing to do with freedom of speech.

> 1. Insults are subjective

Everything is subjective. Hitting someone is subjective, so according to you, criminalising "battery" is dangerous because you can arrest people who just bumped into you in the subway. Pretending that it means full arbitrary situation is just stupid.

> 2. You're literally trying to restrict how I express my legitimate opinions

No, you can do it if you want, you just have to pay for the damage you have done when you use it as an idiot. It is as ridiculous as saying: we are in a free country, so I can walk wherever I want, including in your bedroom when you are sleeping.

No one is ever arresting for your opinion. In all of the initial examples, there are plenty of people who criticize openly these politicians that you pretend people will be arrested if they criticize them. It does not happen. Because it is not true that you are arrested if you criticize them.

> The original point was that people were arrested for criticizing politicians

They were not arrested for criticizing politicians. Some of the examples are literally not attack on politicians, they don't target a politician as individual. Some examples are not even any arrest. And the other examples, they were "arrested" for being stupid, where it happened they were also targeting a politician. They would have been arrested equally if they targeted another public figure.

> It's not a conspiracy when people are just acting in their own best interests.

It is on the best interest of individuals to get a lot of prestige by demonstrating a consensus is not supported by facts.

> frankly completely ignorant of studies done on exactly this

I don't think someone who provided tax evasion examples of powerful targeting opponents just because they were critical of them would be able to understand these studies.