How the Right Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Cancel Culture

A rock band’s tour was cancelled after one of their band members made a tasteless joke. A working-class cashier was fired from her job at the behest of an online mob horrified by something she said on Facebook. A schoolteacher was suspended after being criticised for a silly remark she made online. Is the left-wing digital mob angry again? Actually, no – this time it’s the right-wingers who are furiously demanding the scalps of anyone who offends them.

So, what should we expect if Trump ousts Biden?

There has been a frenzy of cancellations in the wake of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. People who have made sordid comments about the shooting are being hounded, denounced, shamed, fired. Most decent people would think it is wrong to make jokes about an incident in which a presidential candidate was targeted and an ordinary citizen was killed. I think so. But should it be a voidable offense, a crime that destroys one’s reputation? I am not sure it is.

Take Tenacious D, a comedy rock band featuring Hollywood star Jack Black and his partner Kyle Gass. Last Sunday, they were performing in Sydney. It was Glass’s 64th birthday. Black brought a cake on stage and asked Glass to make a wish. You can probably guess what he said. Yep: “Don’t miss Trump next time.”

Rude? Yes. Too soon? Sure. But a language offence of such magnitude that Tenacious D now has to consider his future? That’s an overreaction, isn’t it? And yet, following a tsunami of media fury, the band cancelled the remainder of their tour, Gass was dropped by his talent agency and Black declared that “all future creative projects” were on hold. All because of a five-word remark made in the heat of the moment during a sweaty concert?

We need to take a step back. A sixty-four-year-old comic rocker making fun of a tragic incident may not be to everyone’s taste, but it’s not the end of the world. What happened to the punk spirit? The Sex Pistols sang “God Save the Queen / She ain’t no human being.” It was pretty offensive. And what about Morrissey’s 1988 ballad that denigrated Thatcher, “Margaret on the Guillotine”? He said that having Maggie on a guillotine was a “wonderful dream.” Was that an incitement to violence? Maybe so. But it was also a beautiful song. I still listen to it frequently.

We can’t cancel all the art and comedy that mocks Trump’s death. Trust me, there will be plenty of it. Trump supporters have a choice: Either they imitate the bigoted left they claim to hate, who rage until they lose their voices against anyone who says something inappropriate about this terrible incident, or they relax and understand that hearing the occasional offensive thing is the price of living in a free society. What a small price to pay for freedom!

Jack Black will do fine. He currently has three films in post-production. Kyle Gass might do fine, too, eventually. The same can’t be said for the anonymous, little people who were also swept up in the post-production purge. Like the middle-aged cashier at Home Depot who was fired for writing “Too bad they don’t have a better shooter!” on her private Facebook page.

There is a video of a man confronting a cashier at her workplace. It is a horrifying sight. I know we are supposed to be disgusted by the woman, but I found myself much more disgusted by the man barking at her while she was just trying to earn an honest living. She looks normal, unassuming, nervous, completely unworthy of this ritual shaming by a guy who hates what she says online.

Her video was then shared by the “anti-woke” social media group Libs of TikTok, where it received tens of thousands of likes. It blew up and the lady was removed. For a trivial comment, almost no one would have read this comment if it hadn’t been shared so enthusiastically by Trump fans online. This was a witch hunt, pure and simple, indistinguishable from those conducted by the hateful left. Only, where the left goes after blasphemous women who deviate from gender ideology, the right goes after sinful women who engage in Trump-bashing. Same result, however: women lose their reputations and even their livelihoods to the virtual pitchforks of a permanent angry mob.

An Oklahoma schoolteacher was suspended after writing on Facebook, “I wish they had better range!” Her comment received two likes. Yet once again, the right-wing offensive blew up the post, and an ordinary citizen found herself in the eye of a merciless storm. A Pennsylvania firefighter was also fired after writing on his private Facebook page, “Too bad he didn’t hit her right in the face.” His post was meant only for his friends, but as the saying goes, Daily Mail He says: “It was shared on X and quickly went viral, triggering violent repercussions.” Short version: the crowd took it over.

The firefighter released a statement that is honestly one of the saddest things I’ve read in ages. “I can’t do this… I’ve never felt more in danger in my life,” he wrote, describing the threats he and his family have received since he was shamed on social media. “It’s one thing to ruin my life, I accept that,” he pleaded to the crowd, “but to put everyone around me in danger… that’s not acceptable.”

Tell me, what is more immoral, more inhuman, more crude? A man making a crude joke among friends, or an army of hotheads seeking to destroy that man’s life and terrify his loved ones? It’s the latter, isn’t it? Mob vengeance is a far greater threat to reason and decency than a stupid joke. The urge to devastate an individual’s life because of something he said is infinitely stranger to me than making a tasteless joke. I’ve done the latter—we’ve all done it, haven’t we?—but I would never consider doing the former. No matter how offended I felt.

So this is what we can expect if Trump ousts Biden. Four more years of cancel culture? Those of us whose commitment to free speech is based on principle rather than circumstance, who believe that everyone from JK Rowling to the Home Depot saleswoman should enjoy free speech, have our work cut out for us.

This article was originally published on The Spectator‘s UK website.