Charles Blow Pretends ‘There Is No Such Thing As Cancel Culture’

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President Donald Trump listens as Robert Unanue, of Goya Foods, speaks during a roundtable meeting with Hispanic leaders in the Cabinet Room, Thursday, July 9, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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As Keyser Soze once said, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” It appears that the far left is taking a page out of ol’ Lucifer’s playbook and applying it to cancel culture.

High-profile members of the progressive movement are still trying to convince the American public to believe that cancel culture doesn’t exist. Like the Great and Powerful Oz, they seek to draw a curtain around this societal cancer so they can continue to use this destructive tactic against their political opposition.

On Saturday, New York Times columnist Charles Blow took to Twitter to argue against the existence of cancel culture. In his tweet, he intimated that what people know as cancel culture is nothing more than the exercise of free speech. He then suggested that when public figures “make mistakes,” they have to take their “knocks” for it.

The columnist also stated that he has had to deal with the consequences of his mistakes like anyone else. In essence, he insisted that cancel culture is merely people reaping what they have sown, as if the pervasive use this tactic has not threatened the livelihoods of people who dare to break the rules of wokeism.

The truth is that the behavior to which critics of cancel culture are referring typically constitutes an overblown reaction to people who make comments that the left doesn’t approve of. People’s jobs should not be deliberately endangered by social media mobs just because its CEO praised a politician that the left hates.

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The journalist’s comments come only a few days after prominent progressive leaders like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) began pushing for a boycott of foodservice company Goya after its CEO made complimentary remarks about President Trump.

Of course, anyone with a modicum of common sense can see what Blow is doing here. He is attempting to obfuscate the fact that cancel culture has become one of progressivism’s most favored weapons. It has been quite effective at punishing those who violate the laws of wokeism. His pretending that this social cancer only affects large companies or famous individuals is also flawed in that it ignores the impact on regular folks.

Denise Lee, who goes by “Queen” on Twitter, pointed this out by noting how another Twitter user attempted to harm her business because she made a comment about a transgender individual that transgresses the precepts of wokeism. She tweeted a screenshot of an SJW type who posted a link to Lee’s business and encouraged followers to “leave bad reviews, call her out on her transphobia and bigotry on her google review pages and on her website.”

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Rabid leftists did something similar to the gun-toting couple in St. Louis who stood on their front lawn with firearms after a mob of Black Lives Matter activists broke into their private community. They published information on the couple’s law firm and urged people to tank its Yelp! ratings.

When Blow suggests that this is just a matter of “free speech,” he is missing the point. Nobody is suggesting that the government should outlaw cancel culture. Sure, these folks have a right to engage in their asinine efforts to ruin people’s lives for making statements that the left dislikes. But this does not make the practice moral or beneficial to society. Those who advocate for this practice are only seeking to limit debate and are supporting a dangerous form of intellectual laziness.

Cancel culture is the inevitable result of Marxism dominating pop culture in America. Considering the fact that far-left ideology demands the destruction of the opposition, this societal trend is a logical response to the expression of particular views.

The reason why so many on the left support such tactics is obvious: It is far easier to silence and destroy those who dare to disagree with you than it is to win people over through debate and persuasion. And this is meant literally; Progressives have no problem destroying the livelihoods and reputations of those who hold differing opinions.

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RedState’s Brandon Morse pointed this out recently, noting that, “Much of what the leftists argue only survives in a vacuum. Shutting down those who offer debate or express a different point of view has been a time-honored tradition of the left since time immemorial.”

The reality is that much of what is preached on the far left doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. It’s why the progressive left has sought to dominate universities. It has allowed them to infuse their ideas into America’s students without competition to derail their agenda.

Here’s the bottom line: The more the left silences people with differing views, the easier it will be to maintain its dominance over American society. Nevertheless, this trend can’t continue forever. It probably won’t be long before cancel culture experiences a reckoning. The question is, what form will this reckoning take?

 

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