The Cancel Culture of the Left

The term ‘canceled’ can be traced back to when it was used in the 1991 American crime thriller New Jack City. Eventually, the word gained popularity when Love and HipHop: New York was aired and one of its characters fired back at his girlfriend, “You’re canceled!”

Not long after, ‘Black Twitter’ adopted the term and is now used as a weapon to call for boycotts against opposing ideas, or beliefs that contradict the majority. Cancel culture is used to attack personalities or powerful figures.

By March 2021, the Oxford English Dictionary provided the exact and colloquial definition of “cancel” which is to dismiss, reject, or get rid of (a person or thing).

Later on, the term is used to revoke support for a person, institution, beliefs, or ideas that are deemed culturally unacceptable.

The left grapples with this, and they reach a point where they censor opposing ideas. The issue with cancel culture is that the left is practicing this. They often act as the appointed guardians against culturally unacceptable ideas.

The progressives claim that cancel culture is not against free speech.

And when people called them out, the left wing’s immediate response was denial, blaming the Republicans, and gaslighting.

Despite the left’s intense denial, the cancel culture does exist.

One recent example of the left’s cancel culture was Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk — who was under fire recently when he responded to an X post that said Jewish communities are “pushing hatred against whites.”

As a result, hundreds of advertisers dropped X — including Disney, Apple, IBM, Coca-cola, Cisco, and Walmart.

Disney’s Bob Iger was quoted at the New York Times Deal Book Summit that they do not want to be associated with Musk.

The billionaire responded, “I don’t want them to advertise. If someone is going to blackmail me with advertising or money go f— yourself.”

The New York Times has published an article warning that the social media platform could lose as much as $75 million of profit by the end of the year because of the advertisers’ boycott.

The left also canceled former president Donald Trump for his views and policies. A democrat judge even issued a gag order upon him and his legal team for expressing their views on the current lawsuits he is facing.

Trump was also banned from using X when the Democrats accused him of instigating the riot during the January 21 demonstration.

While others justify canceling as criticism, there is a fine line that differentiates the two terms. “Criticism seeks to engage in conversations and identify error; while canceling seeks to stigmatize conversations and punish the errant.”

Cancelling is merely concerned with the social backlash. They silence the hypothesis by killing you socially.

The cancel culture reflects a conflict over what can and cannot be said and who decides which is right or wrong. Left-wing activists retreat into virtue-signaling, attacking moral values instead of fighting for real change. The left weaponizes a culture of fear and attacks whomever they consider as opponents instead of discussing how to address inequality and injustice.