The Right's Cancel Culture and the Right to It

 All semester, we've been building to a conclusion that I don't think we'll ever actually agree on. If free speech has vast harms, but restricted speech leads to totalitarianism, then what is freedom and who has the right to regulate it?

This week, we have the task of discussing offense. Whether it is a simple offense or a complex response to various harms that have led to this one offensive act, it seems everyone has a problem whenever anyone else is offended. The largest indicator of this divide is the increased importance of cancel culture. While right wing groups love to claim they don't participate, both sides have their own cancel culture, even if it is marked differently. At the end of the day, though, the greatest divide between the two groups is what they are offended by and why it offends them in the first place.

Right-Wing Cancel Culture

Before I'd ever heard about anyone being cancelled, I saw article after article about left-wing policies being passed or supported and the right-wing jumping to boycott it or attack the mettle of their left-wing counterparts. There were huge boycotts on Target for introducing gender-neutral bathrooms. There were boycotts on Nike for supporting Colin Kaepernick. Conservatives really burned Nike products because a black man in America didn't want to stand and honor a flag and anthem that historically oppressed and silenced him. They never called this cancel culture, they simply attacked the "weak snowflakes" who were simply calling for change in the American political system. What the conservatives do to "cancel" is go on national TV and make a mockery out of the offended and then boycott or attempt to destroy brands. Additionally, they describe anything to the left of them "communism" so that they can take a fear mongering standpoint. Even people on the left don't want a fully communist nation (by the majority -- the left-wing exclusively houses communist proponents), so being able to paint anything as a Red Scare gives Conservatives the fuel to grab centrists or moderate leftists who don't want communism. 

In short, the right uses rhetoric to cancel. They never say "We should cancel ____" or "#_____IsOverParty", but they make sure to conflate simple things with large issues, and if they can't do that, hey just inflate the harms of the other side. In the 2020 election, Trump's whole campaign hinged on the idea that he would stop unnecessary conservative censorship, he would protect freedoms, and he wouldn't let communism into the country. All Biden had to say to run was "I'm not Trump, so I have your best interests at heart" because Trump had no platform other than combatting liberal ideas. Anything he didn't agree with economically was communist. Anything he didn't agree with socially was terrorism. Anything promoting LGBTQ+ equality and recognition was something that is disruptive to our youth. He was casually cancelling the left by saying that they were going to ruin America. The rhetoric doesn't have to have proof, nor does it have to make sense, but regardless of these qualifiers, the right persists in attempting to demonize those against them and they build a base that is loyal enough (and scared enough of the other side) that it will support their figureheads almost even to death. 

This has long been the party of cancelling things. Rather than having one person face the consequences of their actions, the right cancels legislation and progression. There was a boycott on Cheerios because of an ad (that was eventually changed) because it featured an interracial couple...in 2013. A couple years later, Campbell's Soup faced the same level of backlash (if not more) for featuring a same-sex couple in their ad (which, again, was later changed). The right attacks brands and attacks anything that looks mildly progressive because if they don't, they have nothing else to run on as a base since their legislation has historically hindered progress. 

Further reading: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/republicans-cancel-culture-kaepernick/ 

https://level.medium.com/white-conservatives-invented-cancel-culture-da69c0beaf3 

"Cancel Culture", the Leftist Weapon

While the right tends to cancel on a large scale by using boycotts and fearful rhetoric, the left goes after specific people to make sure they face the consequences of their bad actions. The right has claimed any liberal change "cancel culture" and "censorship". When Harry Styles wore a dress for Vogue, the right claimed that he was destroying manhood and that "manly men" are being attacked and replaced. When Hasbro decided to make a gender-neutral Mr. Potato Head rather than gendering the toys, the right wrongfully attributed that to the left "making a fuss" about another "manly" figure. Again, when the Dr. Seuss company decided to stop publishing books with racist depictions, the right called this left-wing censorship attacking a beloved author. So if you listen to the right, the entire base of being liberal means you are cancelling anything you can get your hands on. 

But if progression means "cancelling" traditionalist ideals, is it a bad thing?

There are definitely cancellations that are somewhat of a reach, for instance, Tim Allen was just cancelled for having admitted to supporting Trump. He didn't say anything racist or transphobic or any number of things that have been deemed cancellable, and yet Twitter lit up to cancel the actor for having different political beliefs. But if situations like this happen, is cancel culture on the whole negative?

While the right's cancellations are effective and build a base, the left's cancelling (because they tag it as such) is polarizing from the other party and within their own party. Not only has it been reduced to personal attacks, it also is vastly ineffective. While they want people to face consequences, only serious cases result in lost jobs or sponsorships or platforms. In every other case, people carry on as though nothing happened as long as they post a Notes-app apology. If they refuse to apologize and are silent, the right (which continually embraces centrists) welcomes them to their side to fight cancel culture and censorship. Therefore, the left has created a weapon that weakens their own base when they fire it.

The most bizarre part is that what the right thinks cancel culture is (advancing progressive political ideas) is effective and important, but how the left uses it (tweeting that people should lose their jobs) is what makes it ineffective. The party that invented it knows what works, so instead of attacking the way the left uses it, they (again) fear-monger and make cancel culture more impactful than it is, thereby further weakening the left's use of it. 

Further Reading: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/965815679/is-cancel-culture-the-future-of-the-gop 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/24/opinion/the-argument-cancel-culture-media.html 

In conclusion, the right is terrified of the left's ideals progressing because they know it will weaken their base. They've already lost the fight by being the party of the KKK and the party that supports domestic terrorist groups in the name of free speech and expression, yet the left employs a weapon they use ineffectively that gives power to the non-progressive party. Because they are focused on attacking people and calling out unfavorable behavior, the left fails to recognize how it has polarized itself against itself. The sheer fact that there's a distinction between democrats, liberals, and leftists shows that the party is not unified and one part of their Trinity has increasingly damned liberal legislation out of a pride in cancellation. I don't know if that made complete sense, but the bottom line is that in the current culture, the only party effectively using cancel culture is the one that stands against it, begging the question: If cancel culture itself is ineffective, why is it so important that the right begs for it to be eliminated? And, if cancel culture were to be eliminated, what would happen to right-wing cancellations and how would their base continue to stand?