DOGE May Cancel Cancel Culture

The Trump administration standing by controversial hires signals a new cultural moment

A young Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer resigned last week after reporters discovered he made “racist” social media posts. The staffer, Marko Elez, received a wave of support from the Online Right and prominent conservative personalities. Elon Musk and JD Vance publicly defended Elez. With Donald Trump’s support, Musk rehired him after polling X on the matter.

This was good news, especially for another DOGE staffer who was also accused of sharing “racist” content on X. That guy will probably keep his job without Elon polling his followers first. A precedent has been set with Elez. This administration will stand by their own when journalists try to ruin them–for now, at least.

While it’s a positive that Elez was brought back, he shouldn’t have been forced to resign in the first place. It looks like a disorganized admin that makes decisions based on social media. It would’ve been far better to stick by Elez when journalists first attacked him. We’re all glad that Musk corrected his mistake, but there’s still some legitimate worries here.

With that said, this situation represents serious progress. During the first term, Elez would’ve been cast out with no one in conservative media defending him. There would be no hope for him to be rehired and his employment prospects outside the admin would be grim. His life would be ruined.

But now, he’s turned into a folk hero.

Many people forget about the “purge” era of conservatism in the late 2010s. As a reaction to the alt right, many were cast out of Con Inc. for simply holding views that are now mainstream. Your humble writer was one of those people. I was called “evil” for basically being ahead of the curve on the Great Replacement, anti-white racism, and the color of crime. None of my writings for the forbidden Radix Journal would be out of place in most conservative publications today. But that didn’t matter. Con Inc. treated me like a literal criminal. The Daily Caller made it a fireable offense to associate with me after my 2018 dox. Now the Caller, a much less relevant publication than it once was, celebrates DOGE rehiring Elez as a “knockout blow to cancel culture.” (Contrary to some claims, I was never fired from the Caller. I left months before my dox. The outlet did fervently disavow me though.)

I wrote for an OFFICIAL alt-right publication, so I was harder to defend. But many others were fired and denounced for far lesser offenses.. There were people fired for following the wrong people on social media. There were people fired for thinking the Groyper War in 2019 was cool. There were people fired simply for seeming alt-right. There were hard limits to what you could say and who you could associate with. Even being linked to Mike Cernovich or Jack Posobiec was deemed worthy of scrutiny.

It wasn’t just unemployment and a bad Google search history one had to worry about. You also had to worry about being banned from social media platforms, banking, and other services after being purged. Sleeping Giants (RIP) got me banned from Spotify and a few other podcasting platforms thanks to my dox. I was luckier than others who got banned from every platform and suffered debanking. Mainstream conservatives didn’t care. Some even cheered this on.

One of the worst examples from the purge era was Darren Beattie’s termination as a Trump speechwriter. The future Revolver founder was fired in 2018 after CNN attacked him for speaking at a conference Peter Brimelow attended. That was it. This non-offense was considered egregious enough to warrant purging. So were the times in the first term.

Now Beattie is back in the admin as an under secretary at the State Department. Journalists are wailing and gnashing their teeth over the appointment–and this time they have more material. They complain about his tweets calling for “competent white men” to govern the country and telling prominent black figures to bow before MAGA. They accuse him of being a J6 conspiracy theorist and shriek over his anti-NATO positions. They even criticize Beattie for publishing a Highly Respected thinker at Revolver.

Despite all these attacks, the administration stands by Darren. His offenses may be worse in the eyes of the media this time around, but journalists are dealing with a different Right, a different administration, and a different country. The media has less power to force purges like it once had in the 2010s. Doxes and hit pieces make the targets popular among the Online Right, creating a vocal defense squad for the accused. Popular influencers will also rally to the attacked’s cause. One couldn’t count on this feature in the first term. Only a few anons would dare raise their head to defend someone labelled a “racist.”

It’s important for the admin to take a stand against these attacks. Letting Elez go signals there’s blood in the water. Journos would scour the social media of every single appointee to find incriminating info to get a scalp. This is what they did in the first administration. It’s never smart to give the enemy what it wants. Circling the wagons around Beattie and Elez discourages future attempts to dox and destroy random staffers over tweets.

It also undermines “cancel culture” in general. If the White House doesn’t fire over retweets, why should any employer do so? American society has changed significantly since the late 2010s. People don’t want to fire people over their private views or who they once met. They want to get beyond all that.

Elez’s restoration is an important moment for the country. It’s intolerable to empower volunteer Stasi to comb through your entire social media to find fireable offenses. We shouldn’t have to live with this. The White House standing up to it sends a powerful message to America: cancel culture is no longer welcome in the land of the free.