There is a difference between objecting when someone calls for murder, and getting cancelled for mis-gendering. Their employers responded the way they did because of that difference, I think. They cannot support an employee who has publicly called for the murder of a politician, or anyone, when people point it out to them publicly. I read Carter’s article this morning somewhat skeptically because I too really didn’t like the video of the poor Home Depot woman. But I finally concluded he was making a valid point about the difference between lefties and righties. I like what Robbie Starbucks is doing, too - if Tractor Supply or John Deere think their DEI regime is proper they have the right to defend that view. That they don’t or can’t is telling.
Their employers responded the way the did because they were afraid the online mob was going to destroy their businesses. Had there not been an online mob whipped up by creatures like Schlichter, the employers would never have fired or cared about what these people said online. It didn't matter what these people said. Sure, it was offensive but that is not what got them fired. What got them fired was the digital mob showing up demanding it. This time what they said was offensive. The next time the digital mob shows up it might not be offensive and it won't matter because the mob will still wield the same power.
I think this conversation is made difficult because it is not a matter of absolutes. There are quite plainly some things which are stupid or evil enough that you should get fired for saying them. The test I would propose for determining the distinction is the simple thought experiment of, if I were this person's boss, would I fire them? Not for any kind of huge mob coming at me or them, but simply if someone showed me what they had posted.
In this case, the answer is yes. If I saw an employee say that they wished for a major political figure's head to be blown off right after that almost actually happened, I would feel completely justified in terminating that employee. Such behavior not only shows poor judgment but also an evil character. Liberalism, "muh principles," or whatever other copes anyone can imagine do not require that an employer must tolerate any and all behavior or speech, no matter how vile and ill-considered.
If there was some altruistic group going around pointing out to employers any and all public calls for illegal activities that would be true. There are people who work to out child predators in such a way, and rightly so. The actions I’m talking about are wholly predicated on the political dispositions, the who-whom, of the people involved, as well as their perceived weakness. And it’s not only crimes, but whatever today’s iteration of wrongthink is. It’s just petty and nothing good will result from it.
This is where I'm at too, though I'm a little more callous in that while I won't engage in mob cancelling tactics on my enemies, I'm not going to counter-signal them either.
I am the same. I have never engaged in a "cancel mob" myself in the sense that I never make the effort to personally contact anyone about anything. But when I see this type of thing happen in a case like this one where it is clearly deserved, I don't shed any tears for the cancelee either.
I think there is something deeply wrong about a lecture being cancelled at a public university, even if the speaker is a racist who tortures puppies. That said, a private employer has the right to fire people based on their behavior. There is a world of a difference between a public space and Dale's Donuts. Dale should have the right to fire jerks, however he imagines their definition. I feel the same way regarding the imprisonment of a journalist vs the removal of advertising. Closing or harassing a media company is wrong, but pulling ads is perfectly acceptable.
I think the biggest problem today is that we have confused the public and the private. Republicans have been just as responsible on this (see the affirmative action lawsuit against the PRIVATE university of Harvard). The public sphere MUJST be free, but the private should be left alone.
When people post nasty things online it's generally just a way to express anger and frustration in a way that doesn't really hurt anyone. You don't know what this woman's life is like. Posting some dumb shit online shouldn't lose someone their job. We should all judge less and forgive more. Especially towards people who have no power and most likely a hard life.
“Doesn’t hurt anyone”. Well, I guess that’s a test though. I’m pretty sure our recent shooter probably read a lot of things online that convinced him to shoot.
But we don’t even need such an example. Do you remember getting locked in your house over the flu? Do you remember people rioting all over your city because a thug died of a fentanyl overdose near a cop?
These things happened because of ideas. Ideas matter. They aren’t harmless. When people take certain ideas seriously, they hurt.
I think it’s better to go after people higher up the totem pole.
But exactly what kind of rule are you proposing here? That advocating assassination should be punishable only if you make $X a year? Below that you can engage in all the bloodlust you want? What’s the cutoff when advocating violence becomes OK?
It seems to me that such a rule should apply to everyone. If you want to advocate increasing the number of people affected and trying your best to move that up the income ladder, go ahead, I’m all for it. But I don’t see how “it’s ok to be a terrible person so long as you’re poor” is a sustainable rule.
If anything I’ll be blunt, cancellation has never been particularly affective on the poor. The cashier will have a new equiviliant job relatively quickly. Nobody is going to be looking into this when she applies to her next job. Cancellation has always been targeted at people with careers. With something to lose that can’t just get another equiviliant job, they are permanently shut out.
First of all, there's a difference between threatening to kill the president and passively stating it would be nice if it happens. Second, the real problem is that famous assholes have been threatening Trump's life for years on TV and the internet and the FBI hasn't done its job and visited those people. That's where the real problem is.
Normalization of threats of violence and outrageous and dishonest rhetoric like Trump is Hitler and Trump will end the republic, etc. is irresponsible and not protected speech - threatening to kill someone is illegal.
This woman is so far down the line and so irrelevant picking on her comes across as bullying and getting her fired is punitive and cruel.
Aside from the moral shittiness of going after a powerless poor person for far lesser acts than those committed by fools like Madonna, Kathy whatever her name is, and so many others, it is utterly pointless and only makes people dislike you for acting like a bully.
I have absolutely no problem going after people hire on the totem poll, but I ask again what is your criteria for “too poor to matter”. How poor does one have to be to justify advocating assasination? A median income? Do poorly paid Vox writers count? Teachers?
If my kids teacher was saying she wished Trump was dead, I wouldn’t want her teaching my kids. I don’t know if she’s “powerful” but she has power over my children.
I just think it’s hard for any of the people you don’t like to have power without the tacit support of lots of ordinary people.
I wouldn’t waste my time canceling a cashier. However…if I am drinking coffee somewhere with a buddy and the staff were posting bulls eyes with Trump’s face under them encouraging customers to ‘aim better people’ I would walk out and never go back. She wanted an assassination. She wasn’t arguing a point, even a controversial one. We get canceled for saying ‘I am fine with some immigration, where we need it. But I don’t want illegals, whom I assume are illegals because they wouldn’t get through otherwise.’ And then all hell breaks loose. If a cashier gets canceled for advocating assassination she is really saying ‘if you think like this, I want you dead’. It is not the same thing. So, I would not go out of my way to cancel her, but I am fine with it happening. And her employer should have the right to fire her. Let me use another example. ‘I believe sex with 8 year olds should be allowed. Many of them are asking for it.’ Should that get her fired? Yeah. She in that hypothetical case said ‘your children are at risk around me’. No employer should have to risk his or her business over people advocating illegal and heinous acts.
‘I believe our immigration laws are stupid. The more the merrier. Open up the border’. Should that get someone fired? Not in my opinion. It is an opinion about a point of discussion in our society. I disagree with it. But ‘I wish Ivanka would be gang raped by border crossers. That would wipe that smug grin off her face.’ Firing offense? Yeah. That is advocating for a crime against a specific person.
You cannot force a company to keep a jerk on their staff. This is not a member of the press having an article taken down. This is a private company firing an employee. The private company should be free to fire whomever they please.
I’m not talking about the company. I’m talking about the mob picking a basically helpless and utterly inconsequential person and riding her out of town on a rail for a virtual “act”.
To be clear, I absolutely agree with the statement that these people are our enemies and we should therefore hurt them. We simply must be careful to abide by the rules of engagement in doing so, both because escalation is bad for everyone in general, and also because over-stepping will simply produce a backlash effect, as the left is currently finding out the hard way.
This is why I propose the test of considering whether I, if I were the person's boss, would fire them based on their statement alone, absent any kind of big cancel mob applying additional pressure. If the answer is yes, then cancel away, I say. If it is no, then we might need to re-consider. In the current situation this makes it very easy to justify canceling leftists because there is no shortage of them saying wild and unhinged things with zero shame or self-awareness, clearly believing that their actions cannot possibly have consequences.
No it isn't. This is a "democracy," remember? Everyone gets to vote; my vote counts the same as Elon Musk's. And all of us, with exceptions such as the mentally retarded, have agency. This means that in the battlefield of politics, we are all combatants, whether we like it or not. And we are *most certainly* combatants once we go out and begin saying things of this nature, wishing for politicians to be killed.
Just as the rich are not above moral standards due to their wealth, nor are the poor below them. Now if you gave me some kind of choice between canceling "random Joe Schmoe" or, say, George Soros, I mean sure, I guess I'd pick George Soros. But that's not the situation we are dealing with here.
So when do we push on Washington? The US republic has been overdue for a modification into an Empire. I feel the Pax Americana upon us, just behind the great transformation. I am pretty sure we can rile up the Russians and Chinese just enough to incorporate the rest of the English-speaking world plus Japan and the Asian tigers into our borders. Subverting Mexico will take more time, but the awarding of noble titles to Mexican-Americans for their victories will bring out the best in them. Conquering and subjugating Venezuela will be easy. Fixing up their oil infrastructure will fund the expedition.
The average person is able to vote, so yes, we most certainly expect them to decide their opinions, the same as anyone else. If the random guy doesn't have agency, he shouldn't have the right to vote. Now if you want to elect me God-Emperor and have me summarily strip the NPCs of their political rights, by all means, sign me up. I have no particular fondness for "democracy." But I somehow doubt that this is what you're getting at.
This article reflects the kind of dignity and good character we desperately need more of in public life. There are a few professions where we should hold people to high standards for the sentiments they express publicly. For example, I think it was appropriate when a congressional staffer and a police officer were fired for similar posts to Home Depot lady. These are people who could credibly play a role in arranging security for a Republican politician - their judgement is too compromised to be trusted if they would openly support an assassination attempt. But Home Depot lady doesn't have any power over anyone or anything. Ruining her life is simply destruction for its own sake. The left has wallowed around in base, low nastiness for years now, and people are starting to look around for something better - why show them a different flavor of nastiness and expect them to be anything but repulsed?
Meet violence with violence and words with words. Tattling on this lady to her HR department because she said something bad online is pathetic longhouse behavior.
Words are not violent unless they are actual threats, that's crybaby stuff. Somebody says something disgusting, tell them they're disgusting. Don't whine to the longhouse and get online and post about how much you hate the longhouse.
Obviously, had even basic functional law enforcement been at work the shooting never would have happened. But to some extent there’s an amount of risk anyone or any society has to accept in order to be free. The monarchs of old walked freely among their people; Versailles was far more open than the White House, even though Louis XIV’s grandfather had been assassinated by a man with a knife.
There are multiple things going on in this conversation. Certainly, security was a collosal cluster at the Trump rally. DEI inspired incompetence? Criminal complacency? State sponsored assassination? There is no cause to discount any one of these options, and perhaps others.
The ither question regards the manner in which a society polices its members, apart from the power of the State, legitimate or otherwise. The Home Depot lady is probably not the best case except that suborning murder should be addressed in all cases. Because I have no affection for HR on principle, that solution would be the absolute worst. By what other means? Stocks? Pillory? I'm good with both.
And now we come to the question of standards. Whose? The mob's? The State's? God's?
The Bard of Barsoom makes a very excellent case for the citizens taking an active role in the current culture war. Magnanimity is for victors. One must first be a victor. The Left must be defeated for they will by no means disarm.
I'm wondering if law enforcement personnel, especially at the top federal level, had been at work, had been working hard to assure that the shooting would happen.
While I understand the sentiment and where it springs from, the only way to win if an enemy is bent on your destruction is to convert them, beat them, or to remove yourself/them from the situation.
The 'right' (sorry, but I consider most of the right to be right leaning liberals) has been bent on avoiding converting the liberals. They do so because they avoid giving up the actual liberal doctrines of the Enlightenment, the hedonism that underlays the positions, and can give no convincing argument to actually convert the left en masse. They have, at any rate, failed to do so - so I don't think that this will work at this time.
As a corollary to this, the right leaning liberals have decided that they don't want to separate themselves from the liberal society and comforts that they enjoy. They like them too much. As such, they are unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to set up their own institutions, culture, and polities where left leaning liberals cannot infiltrate and cancel them.
So, what is left? Only beating them. I, myself, think that this is a losing game, long term. I think so because you still have the liberal priors. You are interacting with liberal people every day that will convert your offspring. You have their institutions in control. Yet, for the first time, right leaning liberals have the power to push back, so they do.
And, when at war, the two sides must fight with the weapons they have. And they become more like each other through the back and forth discussions of fighting as enemies. That's how war works. Chose your enemies carefully.
Again, I don't agree with it; I myself have a Polity, and encourage others to do the same. I encourage them to gatekeep, and keep liberals out, and punch them in the face if they try to enter and be entryists. To me, that is a winning strategy. Create your own companies, your own institutions, your own polities, etc, and support others in doing so.
I appreciate your position, but I disagree. There are many doctors, dentists, city council people, & other “laptop class” people getting zapped, not just random cashiers.
I agree that much of left already lives in a world of terror that little can penetrate, but from a strictly tactical position, once the enemy uses a weapon, you must use that weapon to achieve the same level of results. A two-tiered society where a rodeo clown lost his job because he wore an Obama mask and those who support rioting for criminals are lauded for their commitment to “social justice” is completely unacceptable.
If they howl & want to go back to a sane way of expressing political differences, all well and good, but I, now and forever, reject a system where it only happens to one side.
Rather than putting my time and effort into getting some dentist fired for deathposting about Trump, I would rather use that energy to help someone build a dental practice staffed by our guys, serving our guys, hiring our guys- especially when they get canceled elsewhere. Why isn’t our response to canceling to laugh because we hire our own and have our own institutions? Why are we worried about what they think? The act of reprisal cancelling is an admission we’re either on the same level or subordinate. My goal is to be superior and indifferent.
I love your well-written article and, being hard right myself, agree with your elitist position that we must take the high road and become unassailable. That passage of Tocqueville has always been one of my favorites. However, while we are being torn apart by hyenas, we must attack the hyenas and drive them away, giving a tooth for a tooth until they stop. They are aggressive precisely because we do not fight back.
The answer to your question is because the right leaning side is not powerful. You talk about being a patron to the abused right but there's currently not enough strength in right leaning institutions to sustain only, I say only, doing that. Even Trump, the undisputed strongest man on the American right, can't save himself from court and barely evades death.
To wit: banking. Any attempt to truly gain a foothold of power via money, the lifeblood of currently society, is quickly and ruthlessly executed. Any attempt to start a bank for the right is, and has been, murdered and they maintain their ability to de-bank their enemies at will.
In short, this is an asymmetrical war. It's not equal peers deciding whether to use mustard gas or not, this is the IRA vs the British. The weaker party is defined by limitations of resources and options rather then trying to say you're on the same level.
Conservatives are partly to blame for this situation. Their insistence on never fighting back is interpreted by the left as weakness, and encourages left-libs to be ever more aggressive. Cons are like parents who refuse to discipline their bratty children, yet will harshly criticize those of us who try. I call it the "tyranny of nice."
Thank you for stating your rationale in such clear and understandable terms! This country has a history of parallel institutions being built, so your solution is achievable.
How to bring back a modicum of shame and a sense of appropriate behavior, that something expressed privately to a close circle of friends may not be appropriate to broadcast to the universe. How to shift the public narrative that wishing and celebrating violence is to be discouraged. How best to accomplish a re-civilizing when we have endured decades of demoralization. It may well be that making examples of some otherwise pitiful people is a way, not sure it is the best way or most effective way. But sometimes stupid behavior needs to have consequences, and many long for accountability these days.
It appears I am one of few who agree with you, but that is also a reflection of a sincerely held Christian faith. Human justice should only be a reflection of divine law. It commands we act in matters of necessity (providing food, clothing and shelter), in matters of criminality, and to bear witness when false testimony is given, but it prohibits retribution.
Ideally the media big-shots, politicians and Hollywood creeps who have been saying they want to kill Trump for years would have received the mandatory FBI visit when such threats are made, a lot of this would've just gone away.
You can't just threaten to kill people, president or anyone else. The FBI, because the targets are Trump and his allies, has decided to let all this go on without any reaction. This dereliction of duty and outrageously irresponsible negligence is a serious problem.
One might even start to think the FBI and Secret Service want Trump to be killed.
I have no idea what’s happening outside of public notice. I can’t think even authorities who hate Trump want to set the precedent that killing a president is easy.
What other conclusion can be drawn at this point? The FBI has clearly been converted into an anti-Trump gangster operation -- a political secret police. Their behavior reminds me of Captain Segura and his hit squads in Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana.
You’re asking the question: Should I try to convince a third party to fire somebody for comments that fit a given criterion? Okay. My response is that getting that person fired is not the only way to convince them to change. A more conventional approach is for EVERYONE to respond with ridicule and counter-arguments.
Some 90% of people stay quiet on issues because they don’t care or they don’t want to be contrary. The appearance of unanimity is the reason that Lefties have power, not true unanimity. The solution is not to convince somebody’s boss to fire them…it’s to somehow convince ten of their coworkers to ridicule and ostracise them
In the time it would take me to doxx some clerk at Jiffy Lube for posting an offensive Trump sniper gif I can write dozens of notes ridiculing my favorite leftist Substack lolcows and grow my audience, doing my part to further my ideas.
For the Matt Taylor case, he was likely pressured seriously from above because the harpies could have sued the government for millions of dollars in hostile workplace nonsense. I once worked inside a high tech government agency as a contractor. We all had to get The Talk about avoiding being offensive. The presenter was a very nice guy, not a scold at all. But he showed us some examples of very innocuous comics clipped from a newspaper which triggered a lawsuit. We are talking third order indirect sexual innuendo.
He said basically at you shouldn't pin up any kind of humor in your office on the off chance that it might cause offense. He asked, "How hard is that?" I responded, "I'm paid here to think, and it's hard to think creatively with a stick rammed up my ass."
It's an interesting topic. I think of a couple things when I read your post and John's:
1) A Forest Rebel's comment about Ernst Junger's response to whether one had to fight evil with evil: "Even though Jünger regretted his neutral stance towards the tyrants and rabble to begin, he is firm in his belief that responding to violence and barbarism by lowering oneself to responding in turn with more violence and barbarism is fruitless and, indeed, only contributes further to the deterioration of the situation. While he did assist in trying to fight the Head Forester in the end, he recognized that there was no saving the Marina, and that the only way to truly resist the forces in play was to focus on greater and more transcendent things like language, theology, and love. At one point the narrator claims that, “In the word we recognized the gleam of the magical blade before which the tyrant’s power pales. Word, spirit, and freedom form a trinity” (55). I find this reminiscient of a few comments in The Forest Passage, where Jünger writes that “we need poets—they initiate the overthrow, even that of titans. Imagination, and with it song, belong to the forest passage.” Finally, it is “the three great powers of art, philosophy, and theology” which are capable of “[breaking] fresh ground in the dead-end situation.” https://theforestrebellion.substack.com/p/book-review-on-the-marble-cliffs
2. I also think of Pytor Stolypin's response to leftist anti-Tsar hardcore terrorism. The tsar declared an emergency, Stolypin went around with emergency trials and executed terrorists -- but only those provably terrorists, and not their family members as some on the right had wanted. "The court machinery worked too slowly to make any impression on the masses or to reassure anybody. Field court-martial were the only thing for it. The situation was one of civil war - so the laws of wartime must apply. Swift measures would elicit popular support, and that was the surest way to stop the revolutionaries. Stolypin argued, “The resolve of right-thinking people to be seen defending order will in itself produce an impression calculated to daunt the “militants,” whose insane daring thrives on the pusillanimity of those who prefer a quiet life.” Stolypin's actions were *correct* - they were swift and just and excised the cancer. Terrorism went down remarkably. At least until the Tsar got comfortable in the ensuing environment and fired Stolypin, which was a disastrous move. https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/solzhenitzyn-on-the-importance-of
My position? I'm not opposed to targeting the worst of the commentators online so long as there is evidence against them. If their comments aren't checked they will, like a cancer, grow larger and more bold. But those being cancelled are all low-level and the effect will be limited unless it targets the higher ups.
In both Germany and Japan the Allies uprooted (and to some degree) eliminated militant ideologies. It took full occupation and willingness to break eggs. Today we are witnessing what happens when great powers refuse such harsh measures and accept what looks convincingly like outright loss to end wars. The absence of war isn’t peace. We cannot afford to wear kid gloves while fighting this culture war. It isn’t a culture war. It is one front or perhaps theater of a world war. We aren’t winning.
It's become dark.. the freaks and maniacs are appearing on the stage.. we have managed to regress to our most deprived and lowest impulses... it seems.
It's like the dark ages... and the masses are cheering... blood lust and insanity written all over the wall....
We have been here before.
Not able to think it through, lost in the mob mentality, taking no responibility for ones personal actions, loss of morals, social decay, blinded by insidious and dangerous propaganda/ ideologies that will lead to a very sad end as history has shown.
A lot to unpack here. We go from “Christian Monarchist” to “fellowship” and “aristocrats of the soul”. I’m gonna read a couple more times. May or may not comment.
I believe in staying the course of the middle way. Fighting liberalism fire with conservative fire is just gonna burn everything down. I think it’s easier to draw people to some kind of middle, than to the other side. Attempting to show people their absurdity in the mirror is less powerful that showing them the respite of the middle.
Big brain shit regardless. Thanks for the write-up Celaeno.
Well said. Yours is the first comment I've seen that is close to what I have been thinking. I think we are on the same wavelength, but I've been considering it in terms of the arguments for cancellation I've seen.
The most common reasonable argument for cancellation I've been seeing is: These are the rules of the game the Left use to win, so we must recognize that distasteful truth and use those rules to win instead.
The problem is, cancellation hasn't been what led the Left to "win." If anything, I think exposing the cruelty and intolerance of the Left when they cancel has been part of what has led to awakening in many people recently. Remember, the Right coined the term "cancel culture" and the Left are the ones distancing from it. Running from a tactic isn't the mark of "winning." Yes, the din of cancellation made some afraid to speak their mind, for a while, but this fear--which you rightly mention as the motivating force of it all--also made many people see that Leftism isn't about the utopian world their media and politicians promise, but about the totalitarian path they demand you walk to get there.
Likewise, the Right also won't "win" by a cancellation campaign. We mistook the petty joy they felt in cancelling conservative workers as winning, and so we are tempted to think we need to win in the same way. But petty joy is temporary, and it darkens our own souls to boot. Hurting a person we disagree with who works at Home Depot doesn't "win" anything, as you point out.
And for the true believer on the Left, whose face must be rubbed in it until she gags, she will never even consider that the cancellations against her side are the result of wrongful conduct. She believes fanatically that Trump is the embodiment of evil and so wishing his death is a categorical good. The ones cancelling her will always be the bad guys because they are persecuting her for righteous acts.
Thus, no lesson will ever be learned except this: The rank and file of the Left will now believe the Right are the cancellers and now the Left must go out and rub our faces in it until we gag, because those are the rules of the game the Right set up. They will now feel justified with a renewed fervor for cancellation.
There is one caveat to all of this. I have seen arguments where the type of job the offending person has impacts public safety or public school education, and so there may be real world problems having someone who cheers political violence in those positions. Those would be my exceptions.
"The rank and file of the Left will now believe the Right are the cancellers and now the Left must go out and rub our faces in it until we gag, because those are the rules of the game the Right set up. They will now feel justified with a renewed fervor for cancellation."
You say this in jest, yes? They are already cancelling the right and rubbing their faces in it. Have been for years. Even being shot is not enough to wring a single grain of sympathy from their stone hearts. They already felt justified because they're up against Hitler(!) and Voldemort(!) and Thanos(!) all combined. No threat or intimation of, "We can't hit them because they'll hit back HARDER!!" works when murder is already on the table. See: assassinations, false swat calls, mob violence, etc. Were the right to remotely upscale to the left's violence there would be gigantic mobs burning down entire cities and annexing neighborhoods as we saw with BLM.
No. I am not suggesting they will START doing this, I'm suggesting they will convince themselves that they weren't doing this until now. People have a convenient habit of believing that history began on the day their enemy did something mean. All retaliation is justified because every mean thing their enemy did was totally unprompted, no matter how much the evidence says to the contrary. The average person is bad at this, and the Left is twice as bad as the average person. The "rank and file" Left, I'm sorry to say, seem to have no independent concept of history and take whatever narrative they are told to believe as the truth and set off on their marching orders.
The difference is, now, the Left have to justify their vengeful acts. They have to draw a line between that supposed evil they see in the Right and the retributive acts they want to take. Even with the narrative control over other Leftists, the punishment still has to be justified from that narrative. But if they have the power to update the narrative to, "the Right started cancelling," they don't have to justify it, it is just "playing by the rules the Right invented." This is why I don't think the Right doing it will lead to the Right winning; the Left will just start doing it even more, and they have the free time and amoralism to do it much better than we can.
> No. I am not suggesting they will START doing this, I'm suggesting they will convince themselves that they weren't doing this until now.
So? The left rewrites history all the time.
> But if they have the power to update the narrative to, "the Right started cancelling," they don't have to justify it, it is just "playing by the rules the Right invented."
They've never had problems justifying it in the past.
These are fair points, but I just think this is like a magnifier for the Left. Whatever they are doing now will be 10x when they can say, "we have to fight back against those fascists on the far Right who are doing it" and show hard examples. The Right will never have that combination of free time and hatred. It just isn't a way to "win," as the arguments I've heard go.
one interesting aspect of all this is that if Trump does win (and win bigly), the fear that will be unleashed will be of a different form than in 2017. my lefty friends and peers are all panicking since the debate and especially now. some of them really believe they will be rounded up and put into camps and Democracy destroyed forever. I think some of their fear is a subconscious realization of their own sins of shaming and cancelling these last 8 years. it was one thing to have the full protection of the Regime and every institution in the country, but quite another thing once the ground beneath them starts to shift. I know of 2 people who are actively seeking out options to live in another country. what is a cornered animal to do once out of options? every attempt was made to destroy bad Ideas and wrongthink and yet, here we are.
There is a difference between objecting when someone calls for murder, and getting cancelled for mis-gendering. Their employers responded the way they did because of that difference, I think. They cannot support an employee who has publicly called for the murder of a politician, or anyone, when people point it out to them publicly. I read Carter’s article this morning somewhat skeptically because I too really didn’t like the video of the poor Home Depot woman. But I finally concluded he was making a valid point about the difference between lefties and righties. I like what Robbie Starbucks is doing, too - if Tractor Supply or John Deere think their DEI regime is proper they have the right to defend that view. That they don’t or can’t is telling.
Their employers responded the way the did because they were afraid the online mob was going to destroy their businesses. Had there not been an online mob whipped up by creatures like Schlichter, the employers would never have fired or cared about what these people said online. It didn't matter what these people said. Sure, it was offensive but that is not what got them fired. What got them fired was the digital mob showing up demanding it. This time what they said was offensive. The next time the digital mob shows up it might not be offensive and it won't matter because the mob will still wield the same power.
I think this conversation is made difficult because it is not a matter of absolutes. There are quite plainly some things which are stupid or evil enough that you should get fired for saying them. The test I would propose for determining the distinction is the simple thought experiment of, if I were this person's boss, would I fire them? Not for any kind of huge mob coming at me or them, but simply if someone showed me what they had posted.
In this case, the answer is yes. If I saw an employee say that they wished for a major political figure's head to be blown off right after that almost actually happened, I would feel completely justified in terminating that employee. Such behavior not only shows poor judgment but also an evil character. Liberalism, "muh principles," or whatever other copes anyone can imagine do not require that an employer must tolerate any and all behavior or speech, no matter how vile and ill-considered.
If there was some altruistic group going around pointing out to employers any and all public calls for illegal activities that would be true. There are people who work to out child predators in such a way, and rightly so. The actions I’m talking about are wholly predicated on the political dispositions, the who-whom, of the people involved, as well as their perceived weakness. And it’s not only crimes, but whatever today’s iteration of wrongthink is. It’s just petty and nothing good will result from it.
> If there was some altruistic group going around pointing out to employers any and all public calls for illegal activities that would be true.
So? It's not our job to defend our enemies. And in any case their cancellation mobs are already doing a decent job defending their own.
This is where I'm at too, though I'm a little more callous in that while I won't engage in mob cancelling tactics on my enemies, I'm not going to counter-signal them either.
I am the same. I have never engaged in a "cancel mob" myself in the sense that I never make the effort to personally contact anyone about anything. But when I see this type of thing happen in a case like this one where it is clearly deserved, I don't shed any tears for the cancelee either.
I think there is something deeply wrong about a lecture being cancelled at a public university, even if the speaker is a racist who tortures puppies. That said, a private employer has the right to fire people based on their behavior. There is a world of a difference between a public space and Dale's Donuts. Dale should have the right to fire jerks, however he imagines their definition. I feel the same way regarding the imprisonment of a journalist vs the removal of advertising. Closing or harassing a media company is wrong, but pulling ads is perfectly acceptable.
I think the biggest problem today is that we have confused the public and the private. Republicans have been just as responsible on this (see the affirmative action lawsuit against the PRIVATE university of Harvard). The public sphere MUJST be free, but the private should be left alone.
When people post nasty things online it's generally just a way to express anger and frustration in a way that doesn't really hurt anyone. You don't know what this woman's life is like. Posting some dumb shit online shouldn't lose someone their job. We should all judge less and forgive more. Especially towards people who have no power and most likely a hard life.
“Doesn’t hurt anyone”. Well, I guess that’s a test though. I’m pretty sure our recent shooter probably read a lot of things online that convinced him to shoot.
But we don’t even need such an example. Do you remember getting locked in your house over the flu? Do you remember people rioting all over your city because a thug died of a fentanyl overdose near a cop?
These things happened because of ideas. Ideas matter. They aren’t harmless. When people take certain ideas seriously, they hurt.
And they can all be traced back to that cashier at Home Depot. Clearly she needed to lose her meager income to stop bad ideas from spreading.
I think it’s better to go after people higher up the totem pole.
But exactly what kind of rule are you proposing here? That advocating assassination should be punishable only if you make $X a year? Below that you can engage in all the bloodlust you want? What’s the cutoff when advocating violence becomes OK?
It seems to me that such a rule should apply to everyone. If you want to advocate increasing the number of people affected and trying your best to move that up the income ladder, go ahead, I’m all for it. But I don’t see how “it’s ok to be a terrible person so long as you’re poor” is a sustainable rule.
If anything I’ll be blunt, cancellation has never been particularly affective on the poor. The cashier will have a new equiviliant job relatively quickly. Nobody is going to be looking into this when she applies to her next job. Cancellation has always been targeted at people with careers. With something to lose that can’t just get another equiviliant job, they are permanently shut out.
First of all, there's a difference between threatening to kill the president and passively stating it would be nice if it happens. Second, the real problem is that famous assholes have been threatening Trump's life for years on TV and the internet and the FBI hasn't done its job and visited those people. That's where the real problem is.
Normalization of threats of violence and outrageous and dishonest rhetoric like Trump is Hitler and Trump will end the republic, etc. is irresponsible and not protected speech - threatening to kill someone is illegal.
This woman is so far down the line and so irrelevant picking on her comes across as bullying and getting her fired is punitive and cruel.
Aside from the moral shittiness of going after a powerless poor person for far lesser acts than those committed by fools like Madonna, Kathy whatever her name is, and so many others, it is utterly pointless and only makes people dislike you for acting like a bully.
I have absolutely no problem going after people hire on the totem poll, but I ask again what is your criteria for “too poor to matter”. How poor does one have to be to justify advocating assasination? A median income? Do poorly paid Vox writers count? Teachers?
If my kids teacher was saying she wished Trump was dead, I wouldn’t want her teaching my kids. I don’t know if she’s “powerful” but she has power over my children.
I just think it’s hard for any of the people you don’t like to have power without the tacit support of lots of ordinary people.
I wouldn’t waste my time canceling a cashier. However…if I am drinking coffee somewhere with a buddy and the staff were posting bulls eyes with Trump’s face under them encouraging customers to ‘aim better people’ I would walk out and never go back. She wanted an assassination. She wasn’t arguing a point, even a controversial one. We get canceled for saying ‘I am fine with some immigration, where we need it. But I don’t want illegals, whom I assume are illegals because they wouldn’t get through otherwise.’ And then all hell breaks loose. If a cashier gets canceled for advocating assassination she is really saying ‘if you think like this, I want you dead’. It is not the same thing. So, I would not go out of my way to cancel her, but I am fine with it happening. And her employer should have the right to fire her. Let me use another example. ‘I believe sex with 8 year olds should be allowed. Many of them are asking for it.’ Should that get her fired? Yeah. She in that hypothetical case said ‘your children are at risk around me’. No employer should have to risk his or her business over people advocating illegal and heinous acts.
‘I believe our immigration laws are stupid. The more the merrier. Open up the border’. Should that get someone fired? Not in my opinion. It is an opinion about a point of discussion in our society. I disagree with it. But ‘I wish Ivanka would be gang raped by border crossers. That would wipe that smug grin off her face.’ Firing offense? Yeah. That is advocating for a crime against a specific person.
You cannot force a company to keep a jerk on their staff. This is not a member of the press having an article taken down. This is a private company firing an employee. The private company should be free to fire whomever they please.
I’m not talking about the company. I’m talking about the mob picking a basically helpless and utterly inconsequential person and riding her out of town on a rail for a virtual “act”.
To be clear, I absolutely agree with the statement that these people are our enemies and we should therefore hurt them. We simply must be careful to abide by the rules of engagement in doing so, both because escalation is bad for everyone in general, and also because over-stepping will simply produce a backlash effect, as the left is currently finding out the hard way.
This is why I propose the test of considering whether I, if I were the person's boss, would fire them based on their statement alone, absent any kind of big cancel mob applying additional pressure. If the answer is yes, then cancel away, I say. If it is no, then we might need to re-consider. In the current situation this makes it very easy to justify canceling leftists because there is no shortage of them saying wild and unhinged things with zero shame or self-awareness, clearly believing that their actions cannot possibly have consequences.
No it isn't. This is a "democracy," remember? Everyone gets to vote; my vote counts the same as Elon Musk's. And all of us, with exceptions such as the mentally retarded, have agency. This means that in the battlefield of politics, we are all combatants, whether we like it or not. And we are *most certainly* combatants once we go out and begin saying things of this nature, wishing for politicians to be killed.
Just as the rich are not above moral standards due to their wealth, nor are the poor below them. Now if you gave me some kind of choice between canceling "random Joe Schmoe" or, say, George Soros, I mean sure, I guess I'd pick George Soros. But that's not the situation we are dealing with here.
Which is why my conflict is with democracy, not some fireman.
So when do we push on Washington? The US republic has been overdue for a modification into an Empire. I feel the Pax Americana upon us, just behind the great transformation. I am pretty sure we can rile up the Russians and Chinese just enough to incorporate the rest of the English-speaking world plus Japan and the Asian tigers into our borders. Subverting Mexico will take more time, but the awarding of noble titles to Mexican-Americans for their victories will bring out the best in them. Conquering and subjugating Venezuela will be easy. Fixing up their oil infrastructure will fund the expedition.
So many plans. So much glory.
The average person is able to vote, so yes, we most certainly expect them to decide their opinions, the same as anyone else. If the random guy doesn't have agency, he shouldn't have the right to vote. Now if you want to elect me God-Emperor and have me summarily strip the NPCs of their political rights, by all means, sign me up. I have no particular fondness for "democracy." But I somehow doubt that this is what you're getting at.
The justification should not matter.
This article reflects the kind of dignity and good character we desperately need more of in public life. There are a few professions where we should hold people to high standards for the sentiments they express publicly. For example, I think it was appropriate when a congressional staffer and a police officer were fired for similar posts to Home Depot lady. These are people who could credibly play a role in arranging security for a Republican politician - their judgement is too compromised to be trusted if they would openly support an assassination attempt. But Home Depot lady doesn't have any power over anyone or anything. Ruining her life is simply destruction for its own sake. The left has wallowed around in base, low nastiness for years now, and people are starting to look around for something better - why show them a different flavor of nastiness and expect them to be anything but repulsed?
Shooter boy didn't have any power, until he did.
How ought society police itself?
Meet violence with violence and words with words. Tattling on this lady to her HR department because she said something bad online is pathetic longhouse behavior.
> Tattling on this lady to her HR department because she said something bad online is pathetic longhouse behavior.
Really, sounds like meeting words with word to me. Especially considering its meeting her violent words with words that aren't even violent.
Words are not violent unless they are actual threats, that's crybaby stuff. Somebody says something disgusting, tell them they're disgusting. Don't whine to the longhouse and get online and post about how much you hate the longhouse.
Obviously, had even basic functional law enforcement been at work the shooting never would have happened. But to some extent there’s an amount of risk anyone or any society has to accept in order to be free. The monarchs of old walked freely among their people; Versailles was far more open than the White House, even though Louis XIV’s grandfather had been assassinated by a man with a knife.
There are multiple things going on in this conversation. Certainly, security was a collosal cluster at the Trump rally. DEI inspired incompetence? Criminal complacency? State sponsored assassination? There is no cause to discount any one of these options, and perhaps others.
The ither question regards the manner in which a society polices its members, apart from the power of the State, legitimate or otherwise. The Home Depot lady is probably not the best case except that suborning murder should be addressed in all cases. Because I have no affection for HR on principle, that solution would be the absolute worst. By what other means? Stocks? Pillory? I'm good with both.
And now we come to the question of standards. Whose? The mob's? The State's? God's?
The Bard of Barsoom makes a very excellent case for the citizens taking an active role in the current culture war. Magnanimity is for victors. One must first be a victor. The Left must be defeated for they will by no means disarm.
Cheers.
I'm wondering if law enforcement personnel, especially at the top federal level, had been at work, had been working hard to assure that the shooting would happen.
Librarian,
While I understand the sentiment and where it springs from, the only way to win if an enemy is bent on your destruction is to convert them, beat them, or to remove yourself/them from the situation.
The 'right' (sorry, but I consider most of the right to be right leaning liberals) has been bent on avoiding converting the liberals. They do so because they avoid giving up the actual liberal doctrines of the Enlightenment, the hedonism that underlays the positions, and can give no convincing argument to actually convert the left en masse. They have, at any rate, failed to do so - so I don't think that this will work at this time.
As a corollary to this, the right leaning liberals have decided that they don't want to separate themselves from the liberal society and comforts that they enjoy. They like them too much. As such, they are unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to set up their own institutions, culture, and polities where left leaning liberals cannot infiltrate and cancel them.
So, what is left? Only beating them. I, myself, think that this is a losing game, long term. I think so because you still have the liberal priors. You are interacting with liberal people every day that will convert your offspring. You have their institutions in control. Yet, for the first time, right leaning liberals have the power to push back, so they do.
And, when at war, the two sides must fight with the weapons they have. And they become more like each other through the back and forth discussions of fighting as enemies. That's how war works. Chose your enemies carefully.
Again, I don't agree with it; I myself have a Polity, and encourage others to do the same. I encourage them to gatekeep, and keep liberals out, and punch them in the face if they try to enter and be entryists. To me, that is a winning strategy. Create your own companies, your own institutions, your own polities, etc, and support others in doing so.
But, that's my 2 cents.
I appreciate your position, but I disagree. There are many doctors, dentists, city council people, & other “laptop class” people getting zapped, not just random cashiers.
I agree that much of left already lives in a world of terror that little can penetrate, but from a strictly tactical position, once the enemy uses a weapon, you must use that weapon to achieve the same level of results. A two-tiered society where a rodeo clown lost his job because he wore an Obama mask and those who support rioting for criminals are lauded for their commitment to “social justice” is completely unacceptable.
If they howl & want to go back to a sane way of expressing political differences, all well and good, but I, now and forever, reject a system where it only happens to one side.
Rather than putting my time and effort into getting some dentist fired for deathposting about Trump, I would rather use that energy to help someone build a dental practice staffed by our guys, serving our guys, hiring our guys- especially when they get canceled elsewhere. Why isn’t our response to canceling to laugh because we hire our own and have our own institutions? Why are we worried about what they think? The act of reprisal cancelling is an admission we’re either on the same level or subordinate. My goal is to be superior and indifferent.
I love your well-written article and, being hard right myself, agree with your elitist position that we must take the high road and become unassailable. That passage of Tocqueville has always been one of my favorites. However, while we are being torn apart by hyenas, we must attack the hyenas and drive them away, giving a tooth for a tooth until they stop. They are aggressive precisely because we do not fight back.
The answer to your question is because the right leaning side is not powerful. You talk about being a patron to the abused right but there's currently not enough strength in right leaning institutions to sustain only, I say only, doing that. Even Trump, the undisputed strongest man on the American right, can't save himself from court and barely evades death.
To wit: banking. Any attempt to truly gain a foothold of power via money, the lifeblood of currently society, is quickly and ruthlessly executed. Any attempt to start a bank for the right is, and has been, murdered and they maintain their ability to de-bank their enemies at will.
In short, this is an asymmetrical war. It's not equal peers deciding whether to use mustard gas or not, this is the IRA vs the British. The weaker party is defined by limitations of resources and options rather then trying to say you're on the same level.
Conservatives are partly to blame for this situation. Their insistence on never fighting back is interpreted by the left as weakness, and encourages left-libs to be ever more aggressive. Cons are like parents who refuse to discipline their bratty children, yet will harshly criticize those of us who try. I call it the "tyranny of nice."
Thank you for stating your rationale in such clear and understandable terms! This country has a history of parallel institutions being built, so your solution is achievable.
How to bring back a modicum of shame and a sense of appropriate behavior, that something expressed privately to a close circle of friends may not be appropriate to broadcast to the universe. How to shift the public narrative that wishing and celebrating violence is to be discouraged. How best to accomplish a re-civilizing when we have endured decades of demoralization. It may well be that making examples of some otherwise pitiful people is a way, not sure it is the best way or most effective way. But sometimes stupid behavior needs to have consequences, and many long for accountability these days.
It appears I am one of few who agree with you, but that is also a reflection of a sincerely held Christian faith. Human justice should only be a reflection of divine law. It commands we act in matters of necessity (providing food, clothing and shelter), in matters of criminality, and to bear witness when false testimony is given, but it prohibits retribution.
Ideally the media big-shots, politicians and Hollywood creeps who have been saying they want to kill Trump for years would have received the mandatory FBI visit when such threats are made, a lot of this would've just gone away.
You can't just threaten to kill people, president or anyone else. The FBI, because the targets are Trump and his allies, has decided to let all this go on without any reaction. This dereliction of duty and outrageously irresponsible negligence is a serious problem.
One might even start to think the FBI and Secret Service want Trump to be killed.
I have no idea what’s happening outside of public notice. I can’t think even authorities who hate Trump want to set the precedent that killing a president is easy.
What other conclusion can be drawn at this point? The FBI has clearly been converted into an anti-Trump gangster operation -- a political secret police. Their behavior reminds me of Captain Segura and his hit squads in Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana.
You’re asking the question: Should I try to convince a third party to fire somebody for comments that fit a given criterion? Okay. My response is that getting that person fired is not the only way to convince them to change. A more conventional approach is for EVERYONE to respond with ridicule and counter-arguments.
Some 90% of people stay quiet on issues because they don’t care or they don’t want to be contrary. The appearance of unanimity is the reason that Lefties have power, not true unanimity. The solution is not to convince somebody’s boss to fire them…it’s to somehow convince ten of their coworkers to ridicule and ostracise them
In the time it would take me to doxx some clerk at Jiffy Lube for posting an offensive Trump sniper gif I can write dozens of notes ridiculing my favorite leftist Substack lolcows and grow my audience, doing my part to further my ideas.
For the Matt Taylor case, he was likely pressured seriously from above because the harpies could have sued the government for millions of dollars in hostile workplace nonsense. I once worked inside a high tech government agency as a contractor. We all had to get The Talk about avoiding being offensive. The presenter was a very nice guy, not a scold at all. But he showed us some examples of very innocuous comics clipped from a newspaper which triggered a lawsuit. We are talking third order indirect sexual innuendo.
He said basically at you shouldn't pin up any kind of humor in your office on the off chance that it might cause offense. He asked, "How hard is that?" I responded, "I'm paid here to think, and it's hard to think creatively with a stick rammed up my ass."
The harpies are milking laws that men made.
It's an interesting topic. I think of a couple things when I read your post and John's:
1) A Forest Rebel's comment about Ernst Junger's response to whether one had to fight evil with evil: "Even though Jünger regretted his neutral stance towards the tyrants and rabble to begin, he is firm in his belief that responding to violence and barbarism by lowering oneself to responding in turn with more violence and barbarism is fruitless and, indeed, only contributes further to the deterioration of the situation. While he did assist in trying to fight the Head Forester in the end, he recognized that there was no saving the Marina, and that the only way to truly resist the forces in play was to focus on greater and more transcendent things like language, theology, and love. At one point the narrator claims that, “In the word we recognized the gleam of the magical blade before which the tyrant’s power pales. Word, spirit, and freedom form a trinity” (55). I find this reminiscient of a few comments in The Forest Passage, where Jünger writes that “we need poets—they initiate the overthrow, even that of titans. Imagination, and with it song, belong to the forest passage.” Finally, it is “the three great powers of art, philosophy, and theology” which are capable of “[breaking] fresh ground in the dead-end situation.” https://theforestrebellion.substack.com/p/book-review-on-the-marble-cliffs
2. I also think of Pytor Stolypin's response to leftist anti-Tsar hardcore terrorism. The tsar declared an emergency, Stolypin went around with emergency trials and executed terrorists -- but only those provably terrorists, and not their family members as some on the right had wanted. "The court machinery worked too slowly to make any impression on the masses or to reassure anybody. Field court-martial were the only thing for it. The situation was one of civil war - so the laws of wartime must apply. Swift measures would elicit popular support, and that was the surest way to stop the revolutionaries. Stolypin argued, “The resolve of right-thinking people to be seen defending order will in itself produce an impression calculated to daunt the “militants,” whose insane daring thrives on the pusillanimity of those who prefer a quiet life.” Stolypin's actions were *correct* - they were swift and just and excised the cancer. Terrorism went down remarkably. At least until the Tsar got comfortable in the ensuing environment and fired Stolypin, which was a disastrous move. https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/solzhenitzyn-on-the-importance-of
My position? I'm not opposed to targeting the worst of the commentators online so long as there is evidence against them. If their comments aren't checked they will, like a cancer, grow larger and more bold. But those being cancelled are all low-level and the effect will be limited unless it targets the higher ups.
In both Germany and Japan the Allies uprooted (and to some degree) eliminated militant ideologies. It took full occupation and willingness to break eggs. Today we are witnessing what happens when great powers refuse such harsh measures and accept what looks convincingly like outright loss to end wars. The absence of war isn’t peace. We cannot afford to wear kid gloves while fighting this culture war. It isn’t a culture war. It is one front or perhaps theater of a world war. We aren’t winning.
It's become dark.. the freaks and maniacs are appearing on the stage.. we have managed to regress to our most deprived and lowest impulses... it seems.
It's like the dark ages... and the masses are cheering... blood lust and insanity written all over the wall....
We have been here before.
Not able to think it through, lost in the mob mentality, taking no responibility for ones personal actions, loss of morals, social decay, blinded by insidious and dangerous propaganda/ ideologies that will lead to a very sad end as history has shown.
A lot to unpack here. We go from “Christian Monarchist” to “fellowship” and “aristocrats of the soul”. I’m gonna read a couple more times. May or may not comment.
I believe in staying the course of the middle way. Fighting liberalism fire with conservative fire is just gonna burn everything down. I think it’s easier to draw people to some kind of middle, than to the other side. Attempting to show people their absurdity in the mirror is less powerful that showing them the respite of the middle.
Big brain shit regardless. Thanks for the write-up Celaeno.
Well said. Yours is the first comment I've seen that is close to what I have been thinking. I think we are on the same wavelength, but I've been considering it in terms of the arguments for cancellation I've seen.
The most common reasonable argument for cancellation I've been seeing is: These are the rules of the game the Left use to win, so we must recognize that distasteful truth and use those rules to win instead.
The problem is, cancellation hasn't been what led the Left to "win." If anything, I think exposing the cruelty and intolerance of the Left when they cancel has been part of what has led to awakening in many people recently. Remember, the Right coined the term "cancel culture" and the Left are the ones distancing from it. Running from a tactic isn't the mark of "winning." Yes, the din of cancellation made some afraid to speak their mind, for a while, but this fear--which you rightly mention as the motivating force of it all--also made many people see that Leftism isn't about the utopian world their media and politicians promise, but about the totalitarian path they demand you walk to get there.
Likewise, the Right also won't "win" by a cancellation campaign. We mistook the petty joy they felt in cancelling conservative workers as winning, and so we are tempted to think we need to win in the same way. But petty joy is temporary, and it darkens our own souls to boot. Hurting a person we disagree with who works at Home Depot doesn't "win" anything, as you point out.
And for the true believer on the Left, whose face must be rubbed in it until she gags, she will never even consider that the cancellations against her side are the result of wrongful conduct. She believes fanatically that Trump is the embodiment of evil and so wishing his death is a categorical good. The ones cancelling her will always be the bad guys because they are persecuting her for righteous acts.
Thus, no lesson will ever be learned except this: The rank and file of the Left will now believe the Right are the cancellers and now the Left must go out and rub our faces in it until we gag, because those are the rules of the game the Right set up. They will now feel justified with a renewed fervor for cancellation.
There is one caveat to all of this. I have seen arguments where the type of job the offending person has impacts public safety or public school education, and so there may be real world problems having someone who cheers political violence in those positions. Those would be my exceptions.
"The rank and file of the Left will now believe the Right are the cancellers and now the Left must go out and rub our faces in it until we gag, because those are the rules of the game the Right set up. They will now feel justified with a renewed fervor for cancellation."
You say this in jest, yes? They are already cancelling the right and rubbing their faces in it. Have been for years. Even being shot is not enough to wring a single grain of sympathy from their stone hearts. They already felt justified because they're up against Hitler(!) and Voldemort(!) and Thanos(!) all combined. No threat or intimation of, "We can't hit them because they'll hit back HARDER!!" works when murder is already on the table. See: assassinations, false swat calls, mob violence, etc. Were the right to remotely upscale to the left's violence there would be gigantic mobs burning down entire cities and annexing neighborhoods as we saw with BLM.
No. I am not suggesting they will START doing this, I'm suggesting they will convince themselves that they weren't doing this until now. People have a convenient habit of believing that history began on the day their enemy did something mean. All retaliation is justified because every mean thing their enemy did was totally unprompted, no matter how much the evidence says to the contrary. The average person is bad at this, and the Left is twice as bad as the average person. The "rank and file" Left, I'm sorry to say, seem to have no independent concept of history and take whatever narrative they are told to believe as the truth and set off on their marching orders.
The difference is, now, the Left have to justify their vengeful acts. They have to draw a line between that supposed evil they see in the Right and the retributive acts they want to take. Even with the narrative control over other Leftists, the punishment still has to be justified from that narrative. But if they have the power to update the narrative to, "the Right started cancelling," they don't have to justify it, it is just "playing by the rules the Right invented." This is why I don't think the Right doing it will lead to the Right winning; the Left will just start doing it even more, and they have the free time and amoralism to do it much better than we can.
> No. I am not suggesting they will START doing this, I'm suggesting they will convince themselves that they weren't doing this until now.
So? The left rewrites history all the time.
> But if they have the power to update the narrative to, "the Right started cancelling," they don't have to justify it, it is just "playing by the rules the Right invented."
They've never had problems justifying it in the past.
These are fair points, but I just think this is like a magnifier for the Left. Whatever they are doing now will be 10x when they can say, "we have to fight back against those fascists on the far Right who are doing it" and show hard examples. The Right will never have that combination of free time and hatred. It just isn't a way to "win," as the arguments I've heard go.
one interesting aspect of all this is that if Trump does win (and win bigly), the fear that will be unleashed will be of a different form than in 2017. my lefty friends and peers are all panicking since the debate and especially now. some of them really believe they will be rounded up and put into camps and Democracy destroyed forever. I think some of their fear is a subconscious realization of their own sins of shaming and cancelling these last 8 years. it was one thing to have the full protection of the Regime and every institution in the country, but quite another thing once the ground beneath them starts to shift. I know of 2 people who are actively seeking out options to live in another country. what is a cornered animal to do once out of options? every attempt was made to destroy bad Ideas and wrongthink and yet, here we are.
I guess I would be panicking too…
Great post, I agree wholeheartedly. I felt uneasy after reading John Carter’s article and you explain why that is perfectly.
He makes good points; I don’t wholly disagree.