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The Rise Of Cancel Culture

Many thanks to special guest author Brad Barkley, retired Commercial Lender and all around wise man. If you need further proof the man was born for greatness we share a birthday. What else do you need?

“If fascism ever comes to America, it will come in the name of liberalism.”  –  Ronald Reagan December 1975 interview on “60 Minutes”

The so-called Cancel-Culture phenomenon has been front and center in the news lately.  Conservatives worry about it as a growing menace while Leftist promote it and deny its very existence.  One of the two latest victims of Cancel-Culture was Chris Harrison, who resigned as host of ABC’s “The Bachelor” one of the most successful and long running TV shows in America.  Americans love their manufactured dramas of people behaving badly on so-called “reality TV” as evidenced by the success of “The Bachelor” and the various “Real Housewives” franchises.  Harrison had the temerity to ask for grace and understanding for current contestant Rachael Kirkconnell who was receiving backlash because she was photographed in 2018 at a plantation-themed college fraternity party.  The contestant was not accused of saying anything racist, but that mere existence of a three-year-old photograph was enough to convict her of supporting institutional racism and cultural insensitivity. Harrison asking for a little understanding simply put him in the same box.

Likewise, actress Gina Carano who appeared in the most recent Star Wars series, “The Mandalorian” was dismissed from consideration in future films due to her controversial social media posts.  Carano was discussing how some Leftist take pride in publicly haranguing Republicans and conservatives and likened that to the early rise of the Nazi’s in pre-WWII Germany.  Carano stated that before it became the official Nazi practice to destroy Jewish lives and businesses, it was socially acceptable for Hitler sympathizers to first confront and harangue Jews in the streets.  It was then but a short step to blacklist and seize Jewish businesses, and physically assault Jews in broad daylight.  Carano was not guilty of lying about history, but apparently, she was guilty of trying to create sympathy for Trump’s supporters by pointing out the historical similarities between today’s Leftist and the former Nazi’s. 

Over the last four years President Trump was likened to a Nazi by almost every Leftist mainstream media commentator in America.  Just in case you missed the point, it was also said that what Trump really wanted was to be a fascist dictator and destroy democracy.  Everyone can agree that Nazi’s and fascists are bad, but the two terms had extremely specific definitions, at least originally.  For those with an incomplete understanding of history, the term Nazi was slang for Germany’s “National Socialist Party” led by Adolf Hitler.  While Trump’s support for “America First” policies might make him a Nationalist, it cannot be said that he supported socialism.  Likewise, the term “fascist” actually means an authoritarian form of government which limits freedoms, wants to control all aspects of business and private life, and suppresses opposition. Later on, the term “Right-Wing” was added to the definition of fascism as Leftists successfully nuanced out any association with the word to their preferred form of government.   In contrast to President Trump’s relaxation of regulation and free market principles, today’s Progressive Leftists want to dictate energy policy, social policy, tax policy and what is socially acceptable to be taught in schools.  Like Big Brother in George Orwell’s “1984” Leftist have used the tactics of the “Cancel Culture” to stamp out opposition thought.

To understand how far and successful the Cancel Culture has gone, one only needs to contrast the first sparse examples with today’s weekly onslaught.   In 1978, Anita Bryant granted an interview with Playboy magazine in which she expressed disdain for gays saying she thought that sex between two men was un-natural and revolting.  Due to a public backlash, her lucrative commercial contract with the Florida Orange Growers Association was promptly cancelled and she never did another commercial again.  Ten years later, Jimmy the Greek had a few too many cocktails at dinner with a reporter and stupidly hypothesized that African Americans were better at football and basketball due to the selective breeding practices of early slavers here in America.  When these comments were made public, Jimmy lost his lucrative NFL commentator gig.  Seven years after that in 1995, Ben Wright repeated the dinner/cocktail mistake with a reporter saying that women’s golf and the LPGA were being ruined by lesbians who were turning it into a “butch game” which corporate sponsors wouldn’t support.  Wright further theorized that women’s larger breasts might be a hindrance to their golf swing.  Wright too promptly lost his golf announcing gig and has not been publicly heard from since.

In each instance, the callousness and stupidity of those remarks provoked justifiable public outrage and all three probably got what they deserved.  But those remarks also stand in stark contrast to Harrison’s and Carano’s rather innocuous statements.  Sadly, those early successful public prosecutions also emboldened the Left to look for more trophy heads to hang on their walls.  After a slow and staggered start, the Cancel-Culture is now racing down the tracks like a run-away freight train with no signs of stopping. One can only hope that sooner or later, the Cancel-Culture will go off the rails.  Maybe Harrison and Carano were the first sign of the Left’s over-reach.  In the movie “Fury” Brad Pitt’s character utters a line regarding the war’s eventual end: “It will end, soon, but before it does, a lot more people got to die.”  For the time being in this cultural war that we find ourselves in, a lot more careers and reputations have to be destroyed.

1 thought on “The Rise Of Cancel Culture”

  1. It’s time we stop trampling on the 1st Amendment & understand that that we ALL have a right to protected speech.

    No one cares that many veterans are DEEPLY offended when the pampered divas of the NFL & NBA spit on my service & those of millions of others who gave their very lives so they could spit on us.

    I’d defend their right to free speech but they are wrong in its use.

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