If we want cancel culture to be canceled, we must be willing to fight aggressively against those using the tactic to force people to adhere to the tenets of progressivism. Fortunately, it appears someone might be paving the way for a massive backlash against those who would try to foist their silly ideas on the rest of us.
Elon Musk recently announced that he is stepping up to help those who have lost jobs or been otherwise affected by cancel culture with their legal fees if they choose to fight back. If he is serious about this, it could be a game-changer.
Over the past decade or so, cancel culture has become a formidable force against liberty. Those with authoritarian leanings have used the practice to punish and silence people espousing the “wrong” political views.
This is what happened to Maria Tusken, owner of TuskenKnits. She found herself at the center of controversy when Karen Templer, a high-profile influencer in the online knitting space, was targeted over a blog post discussing her trip to India. Templer said traveling to the country was “like being offered a seat on a flight to Mars” and that if she can go to India, “I can do anything – I’m pretty sure.”
Naturally, the woke busybodies in the community lambasted her for using “othering” language that supposedly promoted an imperialist approach to her trip. Tusken spoke up and defended her, noting how people were “just falling over themselves to apologize for being white” and being “hostile in the name of social justice.”
It did not take long for the crybullies to target Tusken. Many of these individuals falsely accused her of being a Nazi, white supremacist, racist, blah blah blah. The fiasco devastated her business, making it harder for her to earn new customers. Fortunately, Tusken later recovered, creating a new yarn collection called “Polarized Knits,” mocking those who attempted to ruin her livelihood. Regrettably, most who become victims of cancel culture are not able to bounce back as Tusken did.
On Saturday, in response to the silly controversy over a NASCAR driver being canceled for liking an offensive meme, Musk posted a tweet announcing his intention to help people who have been targeted in this manner:
If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill.
No limit.
Please let us know.
Musk followed it up with another tweet in which he also vowed to go after the leadership of companies who play the cancel culture game. “And we won’t just sue, it will be extremely loud and we will go after the boards of directors of the companies too,” he wrote.
If Musk is serious about this, it could be a significant turning point in the culture war. The Cancel Culture Community(TM), much like the government, is often able to succeed at destroying its victims because those on the receiving end of their machinations do not have the wherewithal to fight back. By empowering people to use the legal system to counter those seeking to ruin lives over political differences, regular folks might have recourse against this societal cancer.
I’ve said over and over again that those seeking to punish those for expressing viewpoints that contradict leftist ideas are nothing more than feckless crybullies. But there is one truth that applies to all bullies: They are nothing more than cowards. The most effective way to get a bully to leave you alone is to punch back, hard. These people want easy targets who will just roll over when threatened, just like Noah Gragson and Jamie Foxx. Ultimately, attacking these people in their pocketbooks, where it hurts the most, will likely be the most powerful way to stop these people from forcing their ideology on everyone else.