The Cancel Culture Double Standard

Whoopi Goldberg, suspended for two weeks by ABC for her comments about the Holocaust, had an opinion. She, like many people these days, is unable to properly contextualize history or see it outside her own contemporary leftist worldview. But Goldberg is a talk show host with no power. No one is really "hurt" by her words. She should be able to express herself without fear of losing her job. As should Joe Rogan and Ilya Shapiro.

That said, the slap on the wrist, probably intended to keep Goldberg out of the public eye to weather the storm, is also performative. No one really believes Goldberg's career is in danger. And everyone knows that if Goldberg were a conservative, her career in mainstream entertainment would be over, and the nation would have been plunged into another insufferable "conversation" about the right-wing menace and the dangers of unfettered speech. Yet, when Goldberg gets suspended, suddenly, people like Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski are troubled about cancel culture.

Disney and ABC are owned by the same company. We should recall that Gina Carano, the actress who played Cara Dune in "The Mandalorian," wasn't placed on a two-week suspension. She was fired for "social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities." Carano hadn't belittled anyone in the way Goldberg or even Ana Navarro did the other day when generalizing the attempted extermination of Jews as an act of "white supremacy" or white-on-white "inhumanity" on The View. Carano used Nazis to make a reductive, misplaced point about how dangerous it can be when the state singles out certain classes of people. The double standard was obvious immediately, as we learned that the actor Pedro Pascal, who plays the Mandalorian on the show, was comparing Auschwitz to the Trump-era border apprehensions. This is the same kind of thing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and scores of liberals (and some conservatives) engage in. It would be wonderful if people had another historical event to exploit, but we're going to need a lot of censors if ignorance is classified as a speech crime.

Or take Stephen Colbert, who had Goldberg on to explain her comments, resulting in one of the most painfully stupid conversations about the Holocaust I've ever witnessed. Still, the late night host let Goldberg have her say rather than merely accepting the least-generous interpretation of her words. The next day, Colbert was on television insinuating that Ron DeSantis, governor of a state with the third-highest number of Jews in the nation, has Nazi sympathies because he didn't take the time to condemn a few publicity-seeking cosplaying nuts in Orlando. For Colbert, who gives people such as Jew baiter Ilhan Omar softball interviews, antisemitism is mostly a useful cudgel with which to attack conservatives.

Though I haven't seen any prominent conservative call for the firing of Goldberg, these double standards will almost surely harden conservative views on open speech. There will be tit for tat, pearl-clutching and pressure campaigns, but mostly, there will be calls for revenge. You can only expect people to live under two sets of rules and standards for so long. A large chunk of the left's time these days is taken up with attempts to undercut open discourse. And not just the bunch of crybabies at Georgetown Law who are trying to get Shapiro fired for clumsily expressing the view of 76% of Americans, or "media reporters" at CNN, or musicians trying to pressure Spotify to deplatform Rogan; it's the president and politicians who pressure companies to shut down speech they disapprove of.

Nor is it only well-known apostates who live in fear of committing speech crimes. A recent Manhattan Institute study found that 45% of employees under 30 are scared of losing their jobs because "someone misunderstands something you have said or done, takes it out of context, or posts something from your past online." This kind of noxious anxiety should not exist in a liberal nation. And it's liberal orthodoxy that will get you canned.

None of this is to say that we shouldn't be critical of things people say, or that every nut has a God-given right to a television show. It does mean that those trying to cancel or chill speech are acting in illiberal ways. Either you believe in free expression as a neutral principle, or you don't. Those who don't are usually authoritarian. Though like most authoritarians, they don't even know they're the bad guys.

This piece is an excellent summary of the situation, but this paragraph is just on another level:

“That said, the slap on the wrist, probably intended to keep Goldberg out of the public eye to weather the storm, is also performative. No one really believes Goldberg’s career is in danger. And everyone knows that if Goldberg were a conservative, her career in mainstream entertainment would be over, and the nation would have been plunged into another insufferable “conversation” about the right-wing menace and the dangers of unfettered speech. Yet, when Goldberg gets suspended, suddenly, people like Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski are troubled about cancel culture.”

That is outstanding.

The 2020 election was “won” by ChoMoeJoe via massive electoral fraud. People who stay connected to the TV all day long and well into the night care about what the menopausal sweat hogs (thank you Candace Owens for that trope) of “The View” are saying and doing. As the writer of this piece makes clear, people who WANT TO WORK IN MEDIA are terribly concerned about all the exposure someone like whoopi gets because IT’S NOT FAIR!!!

That’s basically the whole conflict right there: I am smart and attractive and on the right side, and losers like “whoopi” walk off with all the prizes and I’m never going to stop honking about it!

Meanwhile, prove to me that if everyone stopped watching “the view” at the same time, that it would make any difference at all.

Stop watching “the view” and reading what others write about it and you may be amazed at how fast that stuff goes away. And it needs to go away.

Here’s an assignment: Keep track of all the posts on a large conservative site like FR for a span of time, let’s say four or five days. (Good luck!) How much of everybody’s time and talent does a useless entity like “whoopi goldberg” get compared to someone who does research, cares, works very hard, and tries to stick to the truth - I’ll say “like Rush Limbaugh,” even though he’s no longer with us, because I don’t want to start a fight...? You’ll find it’s all about “whoopi” and mindless troglodytes like her. It. Whichever is more appropriate.

The leftwad media are going to keep propping up whoever they like, and the more obnoxious that person is, the more they love that person and the more certain it is that that person will NEVER go away.

“Which talking head is the best?” or “Which talking head would be better than this one?” or “Which talking head represents the conservative point of view?” are not the considerations - how best to save America and our Constitutional Republic IS the MAIN CONSIDERATION.

And, if a conservative pundit or blogger or whatever would rather spew jealousy at a leftwad media darling like “whoopi” than tackle the real issues then screw ‘em. A lot of these weiner-heads are of the “The election was won fair and square! Trump lost! Let’s move on!” stripe: That’s why they like “whoopi” so much, because it’s a non-issue they can pretend to take great offense over.

Yes, I know: A lot of people can’t get out and don’t work and watching TV is the only thing they have!

If you really need TV that badly: Think of how bad TV is going to suck after the Great Reset. And what will you be able to do about it then? “I’m Whoopi Goldberg and I’m appearing on your favorite TV station to remind you that we’re going to have our local firearms confiscation fair this weekend in your community! I’m hoping every patriot will show up to turn in whatever firearms he may have, so we don’t have to do mass arrests, like we did last time!”

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