At Ease
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RE: Cancel culture
Not to interrupt our peak MAGA moment here, as a coach apologizing for inappropriately using the N-word is bemoaned...
Quote:But here’s the hypocrisy: Donald Trump has embraced “cancel culture” his entire life. I cannot think of another politician, or public figure, who has spent more time trying to “cancel” critics than the thin-skinned former reality TV star in the Oval Office. Over the years, Trump has called for the boycott of leading U.S. brands such as Macy’s, Apple, and Harley Davidson, among others, because they displeased him in one way or another. He forces those around him into nondisclosure agreements and then threatens them with legal action if they dare speak out against him — including his own niece Mary, whose forthcoming tell-all book the president is desperately trying to … cancel.
This approach has only been amplified since he came into office, a period that has found him publicly and repeatedly trying to cancel both social media companies (“We will strongly regulate, or close them down”) and network news channels (“Challenge their license?”) while calling for prominent journalists who have upset him, such as Chuck Todd and Jemele Hill, to be fired. (In private, Trump has gone much further: according to his former national security adviser, the president wants some journalists to be “executed.”)
Then there is Colin Kaepernick. The president not only supported the benching of the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback but insisted NFL owners sack other players, too. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a ***** off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’” he ranted at a rally in September 2017.
Quote:While Trump has taken “cancel culture” to new and authoritarian heights, the conservative moment as a whole has spent years loudly withdrawing support for those deemed “objectionable or offensive.” The Republican National Committee boycotted MSNBC and even the conservative National Review. A conservative group tried to boycott Burger King and Kit Kat for (what it claimed) were offensive ads. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) tried to cancel Nike and the NFL. Fox News fans tried to cancel Keurig by smashing the company’s coffee machines. Right-wing pundit Erick Erickson tried to cancel the New York Times — by shooting bullets into a copy of it! Recall also what happened to the Dixie Chicks — now known simply as the Chicks. In March 2003, in the run-up to the illegal invasion of Iraq, the band said they were “ashamed” that President George W. Bush was from their home state of Texas. In response, conservatives denounced them as “Saddam’s Angels,” “Dixie Sluts, and “traitors,” and banned them from hundreds of conservative radio stations across the country. In Bossier City, La., hundreds of pro-Bush protesters used a 33,000-pound tractor to physically crush the band’s CDs.
The list of conservative “cancel culture” targets stretches back decades, long before the dawn of the Internet. In 1966, right-wing Christians tried to cancel John Lennon, after he claimed the Beatles were “more popular” than Jesus. The British band received death threats in the United States and a Birmingham, Ala., radio station announced a bonfire and invited teens to burn their Beatles records.
Quote:So ignore the hysterical attacks on “cancel culture” from the right. Not only because they are a distortion of the facts and endless talk of a leftist “cancel culture” mob is a “joke” and a “con,” as Osita Nwanevu has documented in the New Republic, but because they are a product of bad faith and brazen hypocrisy.
Right now, in 2020, here in the United States, we have an anti-free speech, authoritarian egomaniac sitting in the White House, backed by a cultish political movement steeped in grievance politics, constantly cracking down on critics, dissenting voices, and unpopular opinions. Donald Trump and the Republican Party have never stood against “cancel culture.” To the contrary, they embody it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2...p-mcenany/
(This post was last modified: 08-04-2020 05:46 PM by At Ease.)
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