They did not say that there's no relation to politics at all. But we do not need to hold a particular political position to agree that the government should not censor people's opinions.
It only starts to become a right-wing talking point when liberally applied to everything else. When even government officials argue your opinion should be censored, because it is critical of their opinion. That has nothing to do with the actual free speech principle. Quite the contrary.
It allows you to expose incompetence at the establishment level. This way the incompetents would see themselves forced to improve. All the crises we are currently going through would miraculously be solved overnight.
Expressing that a politician is bad at their job is not hate speech. That is an opinion and very much protected by free speech.
Hate speech is a very specific term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech
I introduced the term into this discussion, because I assumed, the commenter above me meant that.
@Ephera Unfortunately, they like to mark anything they don't agree as hate speech, espionage act, etc. And there have been cases of detainment for shaming the establishment.