Don’t Expect A ‘Right-Wing Cancel Culture’ To Emerge

In order to cancel leftists, conservatives often have to uphold left-wing standards

Libs can now suffer consequences for wanting Donald Trump to die. This new standard has caused the terrible “parody” band Tenacious D to go on hiatus and job loss for several workers. Some of those getting fired are teachers and Democratic activists. Others are just cashiers at Home Depot. 

This trend has inspired fiery debate on the Right. One side sees this as a step in the right direction. The only way conservatives can win is if they punish leftists in the same manner the woke harmed right-wingers in the past. The other side sees this as stupid and harmful to the Right’s cause. The critics dispute that anything can be gained from getting random workers fired over social media posts. They feel it further undermines protection for free speech and makes the Right look bad.

The correct view is to see it as a good thing that people can no longer wish for Trump’s death without consequences. 

But the Right can’t replicate this situation to further intimidate the Left. The primary reasons for “cancellation” remain the same–and it’s the standards set by the Left. You can still lose your job over allegations of racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, etc. The Right, usually, can only punish the other side by digging up evidence of leftists violating their own standards. It’s rare for someone to get fired for mocking white people, Christians, traditional values, or anything conservatives would care about. Instead, leftists only suffer consequences for tweeting out the n-word when they were a teen or not using the right pronouns. The lone exception to this rule is liberals losing their jobs over wanting Trump dead.

Social norms and taboos are set by the institutions, and liberals control the institutions. These institutions include news media, Hollywood, the universities, many churches, schools, HR departments, and the federal bureaucracy. Most people are programmed to think racism, sexism, and all the other “bigotries” are the worst things an individual can express. They will think it’s right to shun those who run afoul of these standards. Every society will have its norms and persecute those who violate them. The problem with our society is that many of our norms are plainly idiotic. A serious society would not fire someone for using the wrong pronouns–but ours does. 

Authority enforces these norms. When a journalist inquires why a company employs a “racist,” when a university outlines which “microaggressions” to avoid, and when a business conducts white privilege training, that’s power looking to ensure compliance. 

Conservatives lack this authority because they don’t control the moral-forming institutions. Conservatives struggle to impose their values on the rest of the country without this ability. It also limits their ability to cancel those who violate their values. Random people telling a business to fire someone who is anti-white is less impactful than a journalist telling the same business to fire someone for posting “It’s Okay to be White.”

The explosion of online news outlets and social media made cancel culture extremely potent. All these reporters and e-activists needed content to whip up their audience about. A Trump supporter saying something “racist” or a conservative writer once blogging something offensive was enough to drive a day’s worth of content. They were eager to punish people, both big and small, for offending their morals. 

It’s calmed down a bit since the late 2010s, largely due to the shrinking of news media and the changing nature of social media consumption. There are fewer journos to whip up hysteria over a politically incorrect meme and the general population has started to focus on other things besides current affairs. Cancel culture doesn’t have the same momentum that it once had. However, it still exists.

Conservatives have had some success in mimicking cancel culture. They made Bud Light pay the price for sponsoring a trans influencer. They forced Target to back away from a Satanic clothing line aimed at children. They’ve also been exposing several DEI bureaucrats as plagiarists. This is all good, but it doesn’t carry the same punch as the Left in this area.

This can be discerned from the campaign to oust DEI-crats from their university jobs. While the effort found many administrators guilty of the crime and the attention embarrassed their employers and their profession, it appears none of them have lost their jobs as of yet. The lone example is that of former Harvard President Claudine Gay. The affirmative action pick was pushed out of her job following plagiarism accusations. But that wasn’t her only offense. Gay came under fire after allowing “ant-Semitic” protests at her university and not caring enough about the issue at a congressional hearing. The plagiarism was the last straw for her, but she was still able to keep her salary and a demoted job at Harvard. It was a combination of violating one of the taboos set by liberals (tolerance of “anti-Semtism”) along with the embarrassment of copying and pasting her academic research. The Right can claim a scalp here, but Gay’s departure also affirmed the same standards. 

The mainstream media rallied to the defense of the plagiarizing DEI-crats against right-wing attacks. Chris Rufo and others were accused of racism for targeting blacks, even though plagiarism is one of the greatest no-nos in academia. However, it appears being black protects one from consequences. It also helps the targets that their accusers are from the Right. No matter the offense, the Left will try to ignore if that’s the sourc. Thanks to their institutional influence, they can protect their own from these assaults.

There is still a tremendous value in exposing DEI-crats as plagiarists. It undermines the whole system and exposes how these affirmative action hires only got their jobs because of their skin color. It’s necessary to expose this to the public. We just shouldn’t expect the wave of firings to occur, like what would happen if a few pizza delivery drivers were discovered to have attended the Charlottesville rally.

The Right shouldn’t shy away from using the Left’s tactics against its enemies. But it should be aware of what it can and can’t accomplish. We’re not equipped to deal the kind of punishment the Left was capable of in the era of peak woke. We also risk reinforcing the Left’s own standards by trying to cancel leftists by any means necessary and harming free speech in the process. Who really wins when we get a lefty fired for a racial slur uttered years ago?

There is no harm in holding people who wish death upon Trump accountable. No left-wing standard is upheld. The norm violated is that people should not want the assassination of presidents and presidential candidates, which is a standard nearly all Americans are fine with.

However, conservatives are better served by focusing on larger targets with more coordinated campaigns. The effort against DEI-crats should be expanded to the entirety of academia and education. We may not get all of them fired, but we can expose those in power as frauds and undermine their credibility. That’s the kind of activism we need to counter the Left’s institutional stranglehold. These efforts, over time. may give the Right the power to impose its values on society.

But that will take time–and don’t expect it to happen through firing Home Depot cashiers.