The GOP is out to lunch on this one
Cancel culture is probably one of the more annoying buzz phrases that we have to hear regularly, as it’s usually being denounced by right-wingers upset that their despicable behavior might have consequences. If a celebrity tweets racist nonsense and outrageous conspiracy theories and is then dropped by a studio, they’re not being oppressed – and they’re probably not being fired because the studio is some PC monolith that silences dissent either. It’s usually a decision that someone who is openly bigoted is probably going to be bad for business and management would rather not have to deal with the fallout from losing clients and patrons.
Hoping that people will take their minds off his party’s disastrous response to the pandemic that they haven’t even tried to take seriously, Rep. Jim Jordan has decided to rant about how “cancel culture” is the number one threat in America today. This sounds absurd on its face and it mostly is, but generally when the GOP becomes desperate as voters wise up to their antics, they try to hide their lack of an agenda with some culture war issue to try and stay relevant.
The problem is that his own party right now is guilty of what most would consider to be “cancel culture.” Just about every Republican lawmaker who voted in favor of impeaching or convicting Donald Trump for the Jan 6 insurrection has been “canceled” by the GOP in their state, with votes to censure the politician in question for standing up to Trump.
It’s gotten so preposterous that Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, despite voting in favor of Trump during the impeachment, has called fellow Trump allies out against this tactic, saying that if the GOP plans to use “cancel culture” as an issue, they can’t be doing it themselves. We’ll see if this actually brings the party together – or just turns the party against Thune, but by calling it out, he’s only helped to make the issue ring as hollow as it should.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making