Polling: Cancel Culture Is Real and Silences Conservatives Most
“Strong liberals stand out … as the only political group who feel they can express themselves.”
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Here we go again, the great debate over whether “cancel culture” is real.
It is real, as I wrote in my op-ed at Real Clear Politics, Cancel Culture Is Real. The people claiming cancel culture is not a real thing, that it’s just a gripe of people who don’t like being criticized, almost always are those on the giving, not receiving, end — the people on campuses and in the culture who hold power in given institutions.
The victims are not just the people targeted, but the greater culture of free expression. It’s what Prof. Jonathan Turley described with regard to the 21 colleagues of mine who signed a letter denouncing me:
The message for other faculty by these Cornell clinicians is both clear and intimidating. Disagree with the BLM movement or the protests and you will be labeled a racist. Indeed, the letter ends on a menacing note: “And we will continue to expose and respond to racism masquerading as informed commentary.” Thus, if you attempt “informed commentary” on the costs of looting and the need for great law enforcement, you are a per se racist….
The recent protests have served as a catalyst for the rising intolerance on our campus. There is an enforced orthodoxy that is captured in the Cornell letter. These letters are successful in creating a chilling effect on academics who are intimidated by these threats. To be labelled as a racist is devastating to an academic career and these professors know that. Now, even “informed commentary” will be denounced as racist if a professor raises a dissenting view. It is not just the death of free speech but our intellectual mission on university and college campuses.
It’s easy for liberal and leftist professors in liberal and leftist universities to act as if the toxic environment they create is just an issue of “criticism.” But it’s so much more, as the many student emails I have received reflect: Rather than be exposed to this toxic environment, with the likely career damage, people shut up.
I discussed this recently on Chicago’s Morning Answer radio show with Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson (no relation):
… I think that it is a real problem. It is something which is really focused on silencing people who don’t have job protection, silencing people who worry about their careers. It’s really not focused on the high profile people who get attacked, they’re simply the target, but the victim here is the larger society. And I know that because I’m going through it now at Cornell law school….
And so this is what we talk about with cancel culture. Now I have job protection. Not tenure, but it’s something similar. So the Dean also announced that I wouldn’t be fired or no disciplinary action taken because of my job protection, but that’s not the point. The point is you have a lot of people who are unprotected. I’ve received many, many emails from students privately who say a lot of people in the building support you, students, but we’re all afraid to speak up. And that’s hat’s really what’s happening is it’s an enforced silence and conformity, but don’t focus on me. Don’t focus on JK Rowling. Don’t focus on the people who have protection. It’s all the people who get scared and bullied into silence. I’ve received hundreds, multiple hundreds of emails from around the country, once I went public with my story, from people who say they’re scared to death to speak up at work and not only scared to death to speak at work, they’re scared to say anything outside of work that could be used against them.
Now there is polling that supports my thesis. The CATO Institute, together with the YouGov polling organization, finds that a disproportionate share of conservatives feel afraid to express their views, while “strong liberals” are relatively unrestrained:
A new Cato Institute/YouGov national survey of 2,000 Americans finds that 62% of Americans say the political climate these days prevents them from saying things they believe because others might find them offensive. This is up from 2017 when 58% agreed with this statement. Majorities of Democrats (52%), independents (59%) and Republicans (77%) all agree they have political opinions they are afraid to share.
Strong liberals stand out, however, as the only political group who feel they can express themselves: 58% of staunch liberals feel they can say what they believe.
Centrist liberals feel differently, with 52% who feel they have to self‐censor, as do 64% of moderates, and 77% of conservatives. This demonstrates that political expression is an issue that divides the Democratic coalition between centrist Democrats and their left flank.
These findings are pretty stark, and comport with experience: “Strong liberals” get to speak their minds, while moderates, conservatives and “strong conervatives” are afraid to speak out. It’s the tyranny of the far left, and it’s real.
Other polling, from Politico/Morning Consult, demonstrates that a large percentage of people see clearly what is happening with cancel culture, and don’t like it. Using a narrow definition of cancel culture (focused on public figures), the survey found:
The POLITICO survey used a neutral definition of cancel culture adapted from its entry on dictionary.com: “the practice of withdrawing support for (or canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive.”
Cancel culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming. A plurality (46%) of Americans believe that cancel culture “has gone too far.” About a quarter of Americans — many of whom are perhaps blissfully offline — said they didn’t know or had no opinion on the matter. When they are removed from the results, a clear majority — across almost every demographic category — says that cancel culture has gone too far.
Twenty-seven percent of voters said cancel culture had a somewhat positive or very positive impact on society, but almost half (49%) said it had a somewhat negative or very negative impact.
Importantly, cancel culture is something practiced mostly by liberals and supported by younger generations, Politico found:
While online shaming may seem like a major preoccupation for the public if you spend a lot of time on Twitter, only 40% of voters say they have participated in cancel culture and only one in 10 say they participate “often.” It appears to be more of a liberal pursuit: Half of Democrats have shared their dislike of a public figure on social media after they did something objectionable, while only a third of Republicans say they have.
Age is one of the most reliable predictors of one’s views. Members of Generation Z are the most sympathetic to punishing people or institutions over offensive views, followed closely by Millennials, while GenXers and Baby Boomers have the strongest antipathy towards it.
Young. Far-left. Think cancelling people is a good thing, and are willing to do it themselves. America, we have a problem.
[Featured Image; Students shout down Ray Kelly at Brown University, 2013]
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Comments
Of course, it’s the young and the loud. These are the ones that have never had to make it on their own. They are coddled more than any other generation in the country’s history. Worse yet, because of never being told “no” or getting corrective criticism, they have a very high opinion of their philosophy and see everything they do as right while their opposition is clearly* wrong.
It’s no wonder that they don’t understand the impact and vile act of cancellation…particularly of the ordinary working class people.
*clearly is used here as a compensatory adjective when there is a bonafide lack of irrefutable evidence, but gosh darn it they just want it to be true so bad! See also: totally, totes, and other vapid adjectives of overcompensation.
What they don’t understand, what they were never taught, was the One Reason over all others we have believed in Free Speech and supported it so strongly over the years, a lesson that mankind across the years has had to learn over and over again;
When the words stop, the bullets start.
The Far Left don’t just want to cancel the Right, they also want to cancel their guns and ammo. If they have no weapons, no freedom of speech, no rights at all, then right-wing helots won’t be a problem.
And the ones who’ve just learned the “real world” facts of life (low-level lecturers, untenured faculty) are the most worried about being outed and profesionally destroyed.
Two questions: 1) How does a “free and open society” disallow those philosophies and teachings that would destroy that “free and open society”? 2) How does a free and open society rid itself of adverse/destructive ideologies, once infected? This is the position we now find ourselves in.. We were warned that commies were going to infiltrate our education systems, we didn’t listen. Now we are into question #2. How we address the problem will determine the future of this country and there are no easy solutions as the principles of our free and open society are twisted and turned against us.
How do you cure a newly discovered skin cancer?
You “cut” it out and “treat” it.
Young. Far-left. Think cancelling people is a good thing, and are willing to do it themselves.
These young people are creating a world they will have to live in, and I don’t think they will realize how unpleasant it can be. Until it’s too late.
Makes me glad I’m an old man, and won’t suffer it long.
Wonder if any will live that long….
Drugs, botched abortions, car wrecks, suicide, bombs exploding as they make them…..etc…..
If I weren’t leaving behind a sentence, I’d throw the world the same finger you did.
(Sorry for the down vote, damn thing is too close to the reply icon for proper smartphone design.)
“A sentence” -> “descendants.”
Aargh!
I am not sure that “cancel culture” is anything new. Or anything we are not equally guilty of.
The POLITICO survey’s so-called neutral definition of cancel culture: “the practice of withdrawing support for (or canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive.”
In roughly 1968, there was a boycott of Pepsi by American Jews. My recollection is that because Coca-Cola was sold to Israel, the Arab nations refused to allow Coke to be sold in their countries. Pepsi elected to take the Arab market and refused to sell to Israel. So Jews in the States decided to support Israel and to boycott Pepsi. Isn’t this “cancel culture”? Withdrawing support for Pepsi because Pepsi did something objectionable? [Because it was not available, Israelis bought black-market Pepsi, while we were boycotting it. Irony?]
How many of us have withdrawn our support for the NFL over “taking a knee”? And I was just educated that MLB is also supporting this anti-US protest culture, in a thread yesterday, which will deprive me of MLB which is finally starting up again. Withholding support because of objectionable conduct and statements?
I withhold my support of many politicians over what they have said and done. How is my intelligent voting distinguished from “cancel culture” as defined by Politico?
Cancel culture is really all about intimidating We the Little People.
I just read this week that Coke cooperated with the Nazi – giving them support as Joe Kennedy and IBM did. Do you know anything about that?
Geologist,
The difference is that your analogy re: Pepsi, insofar as you described it, is that it was an individual act of conscience. Individuals chose to withhold their patronage from one vendor and substituted with a product from another vendor.
Your analogy didn’t describe any sense of moral imperative or shaming or shunning of individuals who didn’t undertake the boycott. Not did you describe any consequences at all for those who ignored the boycott.
The analogy of MLB or the NFL falls short as well. Both offer consumer products, entertainment, which you, as a potential consumer, are free to patronize or not.
In contrast Cancel Culture seeks to revoke the choice of all consumers for that product by insisting upon the products elimination. You won’t be allowed a choice because the product is eliminated from the marketplace.
In Cancel Culture the product being targeted for removal is the person. In Prof Jacobson case it isn’t enough that his detractors can choose an alternative. His detractors are determined that no one can be allowed to choose to attend his courses. They seek not only his removal from Cornell but also his banishment from academia at large.
Consumer boycotts have a long history. I can’t see any problems with individuals choosing to voluntary purchase or not purchase a particular product. What Cancel Culture seeks to impose is the elimination of that choice.
The purveyors of Cancel Culture seek to make your decision for you according to the policy preferences, political, economic, social and cultural philosophy they hold. Your individual wishes are irrelevant to them, they decide while you obey. If you resist then you will be targeted for cancellation as well.
Add Criminal Democrats to the Cancelers….
St. Louis Prosecutor’s Office Busted
Altering Evidence;
Reassembled Non-Operable McCloskey Pistol To Classify As Lethal
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/patricia-mccloskey-pistol-was-non-operable-prop-so-prosecutors-office-ordered-it
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