Look, when it comes to cancel culture and the Woke movement, Bill Maher and I are on the same page. It's wrong. Period. Full stop. Liberals, especially white liberals, need to get a grip and get a life. To quote Maher in one of his New Rules segments, "You can't be more offended than the victim."
You also can't take an eraser to the blackboard of history just because some of it is unpleasant. The recent decision by the San Francisco Board of Education to rename George Washington and Abraham Lincoln High Schools is the sort of stupidity that gives conservatives the ammunition they need to brand all of us as radicals and anti-American. It was that very same branding that allowed the GOP to flip 14 seats in the House last November, and if it isn't nipped in the bud, and soon, it will lead to Democrats losing their majorities in both chambers next year.
But let's get something straight: when it comes to cancel culture, Democrats can't hold a candle to Republicans. More than 140 House and Senate Republicans, along with 19 state attorneys general, attempted to cancel last year's presidential election results because they didn't like the outcome. Were it not for the courage of a handful of election officials and several dozen federal and state court judges, they would've gotten away with it.
As we speak, Republican legislatures throughout the country are looking to enact laws that would literally disenfranchise (i.e., cancel) millions of people whose only crime was that they voted for the "wrong" candidate in the last election. In Arizona, for instance, the state's Republican party is considering a bill that would grant the legislature the power to override the popular vote in the next presidential election if it determined that the winner was not "legitimate."
Think about what might've happened had something like that been legal in every swing state that voted for Joe Biden. You wouldn't have needed an assault on the Capitol building on January 6; the real coup would've taken place December 14 when the Electoral College met.
This week, the Supreme Court is currently hearing a challenge to what's left of the Voting Rights Act in which the plaintiffs actually admitted in their oral arguments that section 2 puts them "at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats," noting that "politics is a zero sum game." Long story short, the only way Republicans can win is by suppressing the Black and Brown vote. It was a stunning admission.
At last month's CPAC convention, not a single person was allowed to speak who didn't buy into the big lie that the presidential election was stolen. Either you drank the Kool-Aid or you were banished. And speaking of banished, every single Republican who voted to impeach Trump has either been censured by the Party or threatened with a primary challenge. Talk about cancel culture; at least when Democrats primary one of their own, it's over things like Medicare for All, not conspiracy theories. Say what you want about Bernie Sanders; his supporters would never have erected a golden calf in his image.
Several years ago Christian conservatives decided to boycott Ikea because they ran an ad featuring a gay couple. Not only didn't it hurt Ikea, their sales actually went up as a result. Nothing shouts hypocrisy better than a bunch of modern-day Pharisees getting on their high horse and passing judgment on their fellow man, while conveniently forgetting about the "love thy neighbor" part of scripture.
Remember the outrage by Trump and Republicans over athletes taking a knee during the singing of the national anthem? Ask Colin Kaepernick about cancel culture. The man took his team to the Super Bowl and now he's out of a job. The Left has never done anything remotely close to this.
I'm done being lectured by self-righteous zealots who scream bloody murder about being canceled but can't wait to get rid of anyone or anything that threatens their preconceived notions. In seven of the last eight presidential elections, the Democratic candidate won the popular vote. Yet the Republican candidate managed to win the Electoral College and the presidency three times. Only in the United States can the minority party cancel the majority party and get away with it.
So screw your indignation. Maybe my side of the aisle is a little too sensitive and reactionary for its own good. That can be fixed. At least I can sleep nights knowing that the world I wish for is a more inclusive and diverse one. The difference between you and me is that I watch the old TV shows and think "weren't those shows well done?" You watch them and think "wouldn't it be nice if we could return to those days?" I visit the past; you live in it.
Well sorry to burst your bubble but the world you're living in is slowly being canceled, not by people like me, mind you, but by time itself. And there isn't a damn thing you can do about it. You can throw all the hissy fits you want, riot to your heart's content, pass all the voter suppression laws under the sun. The future is coming whether you like it or not.
So buck up and get over it.
Comments