Cancel ‘Cancel Culture’

Words & Phrases We Can Do Without

For years, right-wingers have whined about “cancel culture,” which can refer to everything from a university firing a professor for a stray comment to a publisher deciding to cancel a book deal. Technically, neither is a First Amendment violation (indeed the publisher is exercising its First Amendment rights) unless government action is involved (such as firing a state prosecutor for voicing his views on abortion and law enforcement priorities). However, in the rightwing telling, the victim is always some harried conservative feeling the wrath of “liberal elites” for their candor (often in expressing views about race, women, or other marginalized group).

If you want true First Amendment suppression and cancel culture madness, take a look at what has been happening in the incendiary MAGA movement in the wake of the horrific murder of Charlie Kirk. MAGA has gone on a cancel culture binge.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (pretending he heads something called the War Department) has taken to firing people for “glorifying” the conservative icon’s killing.” Restricting speech about a private citizen is unprecedented. And, unsurprisingly, it is not clear the fired individuals were “glorifying” anything. Certainly, criticizing Kirk’s views is not glorification. (I suspect the current Pentagon leadership does not understand the meaning of the word: “to praise, exalt.”)

It has not stopped there. Government Executive reported: “The Homeland Security Department has already taken action against at least three staffers: a Federal Emergency Management Agency employee was placed on administrative leave, Fox News reported, after he posted on Instagram that President Trump had ordered flags at half-staff ‘for the literal racist homophobe misogynist.’” That would be core First Amendment speech. (Incidentally, this is neither glorification nor inaccurate if you look at Kirk’s comments over the years.)

In addition, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Secret Service (whose employee said anyone mourning Kirk should delete him [from their social media] because Kirk “spewed hate and racism”) and the Veterans Affairs Department have either taken disciplinary action or threatened to take action against perceived glorifiers.

It is a shame these voices did not call for Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) to step down after his despicable comments that made light of the killing of Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman, or demand Donald Trump retire from public life for mocking the attempted murder of Paul Pelosi.

Two aspects of this official government censorship stand out: the sheer hypocrisy of conflating “glorifying” killing with criticizing Kirk’s own words; and the breathless indignation based on virtually nothing. The group that used to deplore canceling is now canceling whomever it deems insufficiently mournful.

Many of the supposedly offensive statements speak only to Kirk’s views, meaning the right’s cancel culture amounts to “thou shall not speak ill of Charlie Kirk,” a surprising position for someone they lauded for debating critics. (Some of his critics question whether Kirk practiced good faith debate requiring a shared set of facts or merely standard issue demagoguery.)

Meanwhile, right-wingers on social media are targeting online people who don’t meet their standard for Kirk reverence. (What happened to X as a platform where absolute free speech was the rule?) The result of the MAGA swarm can be everything from death threats to doxxing to harassment to job loss.

Unsurprisingly, intimidated private employers are also firing employees for Kirk-related comments. “Within 24 hours of Charlie Kirk’s killing, an assistant dean at a Tennessee college, a communications staffer for an NFL team, a Next Door employee in Milwaukee, and the co-owner of a Cincinnati barbecue restaurant were fired after posting about [the assassination],” the Washington Post reported. “They had all used language or memes their employers deemed offensive or insensitive about the 31-year-old conservative firebrand.” So…insensitive commentary is a firing offense—for people who watch Fox News all day?! The same Fox News whose anchors casually propose that mentally ill homeless people should just be put to death?

Worst of all (since newspapers should understand the value of free speech) The Post fired opinion columnist Karen Attiah for rather innocuous Bluesky comments on violence in America and for paraphrasing Charlie Kirk’s own words. The collapse of a once-great American newspaper is complete.

Well, surely the cancel culture police (looking at you, Bari Weiss) will put an end to this, pronto! Of course, I expect nothing of the sort from a gang in a perpetual state of victimhood and paranoia (largely about higher education). They have consistently refused to police their own side no matter how racist, violent, or vile the message.

The claim that MAGA censors (who revere Jan. 6 insurrectionists) are concerned about violence is risible. No one honestly believes that a Democrat stating “Kirk said misogynistic things” would incite violence, whereas Trump’s comment about Second Amendment defenders dealing with Hillary Clinton or his persistent smearing of judges would not.

The right’s censorship spree goes beyond Kirk, certainly. The MAGA language police has been ensconced in the Trump regime scouring federal laws, regulations, displays, and the like to remove any mention of “gender” or “equity” or other words that might (but often don’t) have anything to do with anti-discrimination or outreach programs (demonized as “DEI”). The culture cops also have a home in Florida, where “don’t say gay” muzzles LGBTQ teachers.

MAGA Republicans use “cancel culture,” like “woke,” as an all-purpose invective selectively directed against Democrats and institutions the right dislikes. Let’s just drop the term entirely, since it has become obviously farcical in the hands of actual government censors.

When a movement from the president on down directs government power at individuals, universities, law firms, unions, and media outlets to punish First Amendment protected activity, they are engaging in something far worse than cancel culture. They are censoring and trying to suppress people and ideas they do not like. The word for that is authoritarianism. Doing so in the guise of honoring Charlie Kirk breaks the hypocrisy meter.