Show notes
It’s funny that they all suddenly care about censorship, free speech, and cancel culture, isn’t it? And the chilling effects that had on open expression? Have they looked at Hollywood lately? Ever hear of a culture of silence and a climate of fear that has all but gutted a once-thriving industry? Do they remember why Elon Musk had to buy Twitter?How many people did we watch unpersoned, disappeared, and banished from utopia? How many lives have been ruined just for daring to speak the truth about the differences between biological men and women? Remember All Lives Matter? Remember Blue Lives Matter? Remember the MAGA hat and all of the ways people were assaulted, screamed at, spit on, and shunned just for wearing them?Do the hundreds of names in the database for Cancel Culture register at all? Remember the Harper’s Letter and how so many were canceled just for signing it? Now, we’re all supposed to feel bad because those who chose to dance on Charlie Kirk’s grave are now losing their jobs? Well, my friends, turnabout is fair play. What drama queens. They get fired, and it’s the end of the world? They lost their jobs, try losing everything. Your family, your marriage, your friends, your status. The Right doesn’t have that kind of power. And besides, no one is banning them from social media for posting things like this:I know I’m supposed to care and play the game of saying that firing people is wrong. Maybe it’s wrong, but honestly, I don’t care. If we just move on and pretend all of this is on par with using the wrong pronoun or questioning masks or the results of an election, then how can we ever absorb something as serious as someone being shot and having his throat exploded in front of his wife, his kids, and a rally full of students? Here is someone who was there and witnessed it. How can we just move past this with all the usual memes and mocking, sneering posts?Look at these awful women mocking Erika Kirk. If they get fired for this, I have not an ounce left in me that cares even a little bit. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite and a bad person, but I would not want these soulless monsters working for me.I wouldn’t want a guy like this working for me either, partly because he is awash in mass hysteria and trapped inside a delusion of his own making, and partly because he seems to think it’s necessary to keep killing people he thinks are “fascists”:Cancel culture was always about power. It was wrong when it began after Trump’s win in 2016. It existed before that, mostly as a joke on Black Twitter, and in the murky, icky depths of Tumblr circa 2013. But it became frightening and chilling when institutions got involved. And when the government got involved, it was authoritarianism. Julie Kelly has a story on the crackdown after January 6th that should make anyone’s head spin about what they did to American citizens, most of whom were practicing their First Amendment rights when they were treated like terrorists. Kamala Harris herself compared that day with 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, as if to justify everything that was about to happen to them (aka internment camps and Gitmo), from the show trials to the absurd charges thrown at many of them, policing their thought and speech, convicting them in the Court of Public Opinion with “spectral” evidence. They were accused and convicted “racists.”I have stood up to cancel culture for the last five years, even longer. I stood up for those wrongly accused, whose lives were ruined over the same things, either imagined crimes of their past, or one wrong word spoken, or a joke made on Twitter, like Gina Carano, who was fired for joking about COVID and pronouns.Why is it always on MAGA to take the high road? Imagine if a prominent left-leaning influencer of Charlie Kirk’s stature (they don’t have one, but let’s say they did) was assassinated at a rally. Millions would pour into the streets all over the world. MAGA can’t. Why? Because they’d be once again demonized as dangerous extremists. Their right to protest was eliminated after January 6th.Imagine if, in 2015, the Right had done this to Democrats:Yes, January 6th was bad, but so were the protests when Trump was inaugurated. Yet, it’s always one group that is punished and one group that is either ignored or celebrated.Sure, you get the fake Patriot Front out in force in an attempt to continue the lie that Charlie Kirk was a “fascist,” but the Right doesn’t riot and rally and protest like the Left. They can’t, but also, contrary to popular belief, it’s not who they are.For the record, the side that shoots the guy in the neck because they don’t like his opinions is the fascist side. Supporting those celebrating his death is to support fascism or extremism. Do I think Stephen King’s books should have been removed? No. Do I understand why MAGA would want to use its power to pay them back? Absolutely. When the Left rampaged through the cities all through the Summer of 2020, leaving violence and mayhem in their wake, the media barely covered it. No one was punished for it. In fact, all were rewarded. Anyone who criticized the protests even a little bit was canceled for it. I remember. I was there. When January 6th unfolded, there was violence, just as there had been all Summer. Yet, only one side was demonized for it. All the American people saw for months, years after, was the January 6th footage on a loop. Even now, they bring it up as though the Summer never even happened.After Biden took power, he weaponized the DOJ to go after Trump, indicting him four times after the Democrats impeached him twice. They tried to throw him off the ballot in several states. He defeated them all and won again, impossibly, in November. When Trump’s DOJ went after John Bolton, the Left clutched pearls — how could he be using lawfare against his opponents!? When does the Left take any accountability for the bed they made? Ever?In theory, I don’t agree with Cancel Culture. But I guess I don’t care that much now, not after everything I’ve seen them do, not just what they did to me, but what they’ve done to MAGA for the past ten years, or anyone who broke their rules. They had all of the power, and they abused that power. This is their precedent. They’ve never apologized to those who have been canceled, like me, Graham Linehan, JK Rowling, and Joseph Massey, and hundreds of others, for making a joke or having an opinion. So cry me a river.But sure, if they all step forward and say, “We’re so very sorry we canceled all of you. You are now officially uncanceled,” then maybe MAGA should think about feeling bad about it. But until then, they're having to lie in the bed they made — tastes like victory.And besides, on the Left, they fail upwards. If anything, they’ll be celebrated for getting fired. Look at Stephen Colbert, who has now won an Emmy and will be getting a standing ovation tonight at the ceremony and a pat on the back for condemning political assassinations. Just not character assassinations. He’d never condemn those. He wouldn’t have a career. As they gather at the Emmys tonight to hand each other gold statues none of them really deserve, they will all pretend for one more night that they’re the good guys as a heartbroken MAGA gathers at the Kennedy Center to honor Charlie Kirk, something they will see as a desecration. They probably think it will be a Nazi rally. Instead, they might be surprised to find them honoring Charlie the best way they know how, by praying. They won’t be able to avoid thinking about Charlie Kirk at the Emmys. They’ll pretend to care about Cancel Culture because the worm has finally turned. But his death, that brutal public execution, has embedded itself in our culture, yes, even on the Left. Sooner or later, they will have to confront the truth about who Charlie Kirk really was. Because, even in the afterlife, he still knows how to encourage people to question their core beliefs with amazing grace. // This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe