The Impact Of Cancel Culture: Nearly Two-Thirds Of Americans Fear Expressing Their Beliefs

As much as the Left pretends there is no such thing as “cancel culture” (and we will see momentarily why it is that they say this), there really is no denying its existence. If anyone says something deemed “offensive” by people who have some amount of power – be it executive power or the power of pressure – that person runs the risk of being financially and professionally punished for sharing such opinions.
 
There were calls to have Houston Rockets’ GM Daryl Morey fired for sharing a pro-Hong Kong image on Twitter. Whenever a celebrity says something even remotely outside the lexicon allowed by the Left, that celebrity faces incredible pressure to take back what they said, and if they refuse, are threatened with financial repercussions, such as losing business deals. A good example of this is J.K. Rowling, who supposedly is “anti-trans” for sharing beliefs that do not align with the gender-dysphoric nutjobs, but she refuses to cave to the mob, and so, has lost business deals for publications for her popular Harry Potter books.
 
Now, J.K. Rowling has enough money that she doesn’t really have to worry about this. Even if no publisher will ever be willing to print another copy of her series, no book store – online or physical – be willing to sell her books, and no Hollywood studio ever be willing to work with her again or sell more digital or physical copies of the movies, essentially making it impossible for Rowling to profit off of her popular series, she has enough money to be entirely financially independent. She is, for all intents and purposes, uncancellable.
 
However, most people do not have Rowling money. Most people don’t have “screw the mob” money. Most people have to work five or more days a week, for 8 hours or more a day, in order to make a living. Most people need to be able to work and cannot afford to step out of line, saying or doing something that someone, be it an executive or a lowly intern, might find offensive, and risk losing their job as a result of it.
 
I’ve heard stories of people being practically interrogated by their employers for NOT sharing the black square on social media as part of a Black Lives Matter movement event. It’s no longer sufficient to simply be quiet about something, or not expressing one’s own views if they run contrary to the Leftist-approved narrative (and this explains why Leftists were making slogans like “silence is violence”). People are literally not allowed to be silent on an issue and must express the Leftist view, regardless of if they actually agree with it, otherwise they can be considered violent enemies.
 
There are also countless stories of people, such as media personalities, being fired or being threatened with termination for saying “all lives matter”, as though that is an extremely offensive term that is incorrect (though I do legitimately think the Left does not believe that all lives matter, and in fact, KNOW they don’t believe this, considering they are willing to kill babies in the womb and are willing to incite violence and terror against conservatives).
 
It’s no wonder, then, that Cato Institute found that nearly two-thirds of Americans (62%) believe they cannot safely express their views in fear of some form of retaliation.
 
According to Cato: “62% agree ‘the political climate these days prevents me from saying things I believe because others might find them offensive.’”
 
It’s more than just worrying people might find something offensive. If it stopped at that, nowhere near as many people would agree with this. It’s the fact that the “offended” party might retaliate in some form or another, often involving HR or the individual’s higher-ups, and get the individual punished for “offending” someone. And these punishments range anywhere from relatively mild suspensions to outright terminations from the companies.
 
And looking at things in terms of political demographics, one can see just who is more likely to be comfortable expressing their opinions and who is more likely to want to self-censor.
 
According to the poll, 58% of “strong liberals” believe they are free to speak their minds. In other words, uber-progressive, communist liberals believe they can say what they want without fear of repercussions (and this is one of the reasons why Leftists say there is no cancel culture – they hardly experience it). This stands in STARK contrast to everyone else, including even more moderate liberals.
 
According to the survey, 52% of liberals believe they have to self-censor, with 64% of moderates and 77% of conservatives agreeing with this notion.
 
Like I said, it no longer is enough to just be quiet on something. One must express the uber-Leftist view on everything. This, naturally, leads even more moderate liberals, those who might vote for people like Biden but don’t agree with the idea of defunding the police (because it is an asinine proposal) or destroying our economic system in order to fight a naturally-occurring event of climate change, to self-censor in fear of retaliation from people further Left.
 
And, of course, it’s not at all surprising to see conservatives being so willing to self-censor. I have mentioned this in various places, but the pillars of power in this country are largely owned by the Left. Conservatives stand in complete contrast to the Left, and so, are viewed as the natural enemies, and the out-of-power conservatives can only hope to not get in trouble by not expressing their beliefs.
 
Even objective, apolitical FACTS are cause for someone’s termination, such as in the case of Stephen Hsu, who was forced to resign from his position as vice president of research and innovation at Michigan State University after he shared a research paper (from the university itself) that found police were not more likely to shoot African-Americans than other races of people.
 
It’s a straight-up FACT that police are not more likely to shoot and kill African-Americans and last year, more unarmed white people were killed than unarmed black people. And yet, for sharing the findings of a research paper from the university itself and sharing facts about it, he was punished for sharing “scientific racism” and running contrary to the BLM movement and the Left.
 
Simply stating the fact that there are only two genders can get someone fired. Simply stating the fact that there is no man-made climate change can get someone fired or punished at some capacity, particularly for climate scientists. Simply stating that Trump is OUR PRESIDENT can get someone fired.
 
If you want any more proof that the Left does not operate using facts, there it is. Stating facts, if they run contrary to the Leftist narrative, has the possibility to get someone fired.
 
What’s more, the Cato Institute survey found that 50% of Strong Liberals support firing people who donate to Trump, while 36% of Strong Conservatives support firing people who donate to Biden.
 
I have a couple of things to say about this.
 
First, I am not surprised by that number from “strong liberals”. They are extremely intolerant and openly supporting Trump is seen as a crime against humanity itself, let alone making a donation to Trump.
 
Second, I do not see the Strong Conservatives as being equally or remotely as intolerant as the Strong Liberals, not simply because of the disparity in numbers; I see this as Strong Conservatives being willing to use cancel culture, a weapon designed by the Left, against the Left itself.
 
If a conservative can be made to suffer because of cancel culture, there is ZERO reason not to use it against the Left. As I have stated before, conservatives not using cancel culture against the Left is like someone refusing to use their gun in a duel, or like a side of a war refusing to fire against their attackers.
 
Think of cancel culture used by conservatives as a gun: we use it as a self-defense method.
 
Unlike a gun, however, I don’t exactly like cancel culture. Ideally, no one would be punished for sharing their beliefs – except maybe for communists, and we currently have in the law books the Communist Control Act of 1954, which outlawed the Communist Party of the United States and “prevents communists from holding office in labor organizations” according to MTSU. While many of the provisions of this act were eventually repealed, I think we should bring it back with full force to outlaw communist from serving in Congress and all types of offices.
 
Ideally, people should be free to express themselves without fear of retaliation, but we live far from an ideal world for a variety of reasons, chief among which is our very nature as human beings, which is evil.
 
So, since we do not live in an ideal world, we have to do certain things which are not exactly pretty. Such things include using cancel culture, which is largely awful, against the Left, since they have no trouble at all using it against us and it’s asinine not to fight back when one is at war if one wishes to not be defeated.
 
At any rate, we can clearly see the sort of damage cancel culture itself causes to people who simply want to live their normal lives, largely unplug from politics, and do honest work for a living – paying their bills and providing for themselves and their families.
 
People want to be able to go to their places of work without having to worry about what they say or do on their social media during their off-hours. People want to be able to freely express their support for either the Democrat or Republican presidential candidates, or simply abstain from engaging in these discussions, without being worried about being punished for it in terms of their finances or even their very employment.
 
I hope we can one day return to a time when people didn’t have to worry about this stuff. That time, however, will have to be after this cultural war of ours is over and the good guys have won.
 
One final note about this that I wish to quickly make is that this Cato poll really shines quite the light about other political polls. If so many people are afraid to be honest with their beliefs, exactly how many of those people do you think honestly answered a pollster who asked them who they plan to support in this election?
 
Just saying, this is another possible reason for Trump to supposedly be “behind” Biden in the polls, particularly by as many points as he supposedly is (apart from the fact that these pollsters always under-sample Republicans and conservatives).
 
Micah 2:1
“Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in the power of their hand.”