'Shut up' is the left's cancel culture argument

Jeff Charles:

As Keyser Soze once said, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” It appears that the far left is taking a page out of ol’ Lucifer’s playbook and applying it to cancel culture.

High-profile members of the progressive movement are still trying to convince the American public to believe that cancel culture doesn’t exist. Like the Great and Powerful Oz, they seek to draw a curtain around this societal cancer so they can continue to use this destructive tactic against their political opposition.

On Saturday, New York Times columnist Charles Blow took to Twitter to argue against the existence of cancel culture. In his tweet, he intimated that what people know as cancel culture is nothing more than the exercise of free speech. He then suggested that when public figures “make mistakes,” they have to take their “knocks” for it.

The columnist also stated that he has had to deal with the consequences of his mistakes like anyone else. In essence, he insisted that cancel culture is merely people reaping what they have sown, as if the pervasive use this tactic has not threatened the livelihoods of people who dare to break the rules of wokeism.

The truth is that the behavior to which critics of cancel culture are referring typically constitutes an overblown reaction to people who make comments that the left doesn’t approve of. People’s jobs should not be deliberately endangered by social media mobs just because its CEO praised a politician that the left hates.
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The journalist’s comments come only a few days after prominent progressive leaders like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) began pushing for a boycott of foodservice company Goya after its CEO made complimentary remarks about President Trump.

Of course, anyone with a modicum of common sense can see what Blow is doing here. He is attempting to obfuscate the fact that cancel culture has become one of progressivism’s most favored weapons. It has been quite effective at punishing those who violate the laws of wokeism. His pretending that this social cancer only affects large companies or famous individuals is also flawed in that it ignores the impact on regular folks.

Denise Lee, who goes by “Queen” on Twitter, pointed this out by noting how another Twitter user attempted to harm her business because she made a comment about a transgender individual that transgresses the precepts of wokeism. She tweeted a screenshot of an SJW type who posted a link to Lee’s business and encouraged followers to “leave bad reviews, call her out on her transphobia and bigotry on her google review pages and on her website.”
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The left has a real hatred for people who disagree with them and rather than argue the point of disagreement instead tells the offending party to "shut up" or we will ruin you.  That is a sick and childish approach to dealing with conflict.  President Trump was right to call them out on theri cancel culture approach to politics.