Cancel Culture on the Right?

The people criticizing Tucker aren't trying to cancel him, but there is a push to cancel some of those who criticized him.

Kevin Roberts, the CEO of Heritage Foundation, said in a recent interview regarding the whole Tucker fiasco:

“[Heritage] is also standing firm against cancel culture,” but that “rejecting cancel culture does not mean tolerating evil.”

Roberts even gave a whole speech on Monday about how Heritage doesn’t cancel people. He did try to backtrack slightly on his support for Tucker Carlson, a man Rep. Randy Fine called “the most dangerous antisemite in America.” He announced that Heritage will always stand against antisemitism; however, he stopped short of mentioning Tucker’s name

Then today, an email appeared in inboxes all across DC.

This email is meant not just to name and shame the handful of Heritage Foundation employees who spoke up in the aftermath of the drama that Heritage CEO Kevin Roberts triggered last week. This email, sent by Thomas Jones of the American Accountability Foundation, is meant to ensure that the people mentioned never get hired in their industry again. That is the very definition of the cancel culture that Kevin Roberts declared himself to be against.

But it gets better. The American Accountability Foundation received a large amount of funding from the Heritage Foundation!

Turns out, AAF used the money from Heritage to fund an operation called the DHS Bureaucrat Watchlist, which combed through the Department of Homeland Security, looking for anyone they claimed was a “bad actor” and urged their firing. One could argue that their whole modus operandi is, essentially, cancel culture.

That’s very interesting. In fact, it begs the question: did Kevin Roberts know about the email Thomas Jones sent? He knew how AAF operated; he even praised them for their work when he awarded them the Innovation award. Did Kevin Roberts ask Thomas Jones to send that email so he could keep his own hands clean? In the words of Tucker Carlson, I’m just asking questions here.

There is a difference between criticism and cancelling. While both involve pointing out someone’s bad behavior, cancelling takes it a step further. To “cancel” someone typically involves attacking their livelihood, sponsors, and known associates to punish them for their behavior. Calling someone out or criticizing them is meant to call attention to their statements or behavior. Canceling someone is intended to inflict harm or remove them from the public square. It’s education versus erasure.

Sure, there are a few people, like Mark Levin and Rep Randy Fine, who are calling for Tucker’s cancellation. Considering they are Jewish, it’s understandable that they hold that position. Most of the prominent conservatives and republicans speaking out against Tucker right now are trying to educate the public about how dangerous the Fuentes interview was. And many people were shocked to learn just how far down the rabbit hole Tucker had truly fallen.

Tucker Carlson has long been considered part of the conservative movement. The mainstream media and the Democrats have been trying to paint the conservative movement as a bunch of hateful, racist Nazis for as long as I can remember. Surely Tucker knows this.

I can remember during the Tea Party era, guys claiming to be from the National Socialist Movement or leftist agitators dressed in neo-nazi gear would show up, usually plant themselves in front of a news camera, and try to make the rest of us look bad. You know the thing leftists do at protests now, where they send a minder after a conservative journalist to harass them? We started that. We had to, in order to prevent the agitators from destroying our image.

Taken in 2010. photo by Keyboard Militia.

Over and over, the left has tried to paint the right as a bunch of Nazis, and every time we’ve been able to stand tall and declare that it is not true. Charlie Kirk banned Fuentes from TPUSA events because of his relentless attempts to control the narrative and join the mainstream. Charlie spent the entirety of his Culture War Tour fending off Groypers in the Q&A sections. They flooded YAF events as well, but the various speakers handled them. Overall, we have been successful in keeping them out of our events and away from our party because we find their beliefs despicable.

And then Tucker quietly snuck the loudest, most obnoxious, narcissistic one in through the back door.

So, of course, we called him out. Just as we’ve always done. But, aside from a small few, conservatives haven’t been calling to boycott Tucker’s show. We haven’t been going after his sponsors, unless they started it first (looking at you, Kevin). Heck, even back when Nick Fuentes was deplatformed, many of us, myself included, said deplatforming was the wrong answer. We wanted him to have his tiny little corner of the internet where he could let his freak flag fly, and we’d be able to point and say, “That’s bad. Don’t be like that.”

Now, many people are choosing to no longer associate with Tucker over this. Choosing to exercise our freedom of association is not “cancel culture” either. We aren’t trying to end Tucker’s career. We aren’t trying to erase him from the internet. We just don’t want to share our corner of it with him right now.

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Lorraine Yuriar is a wife, mother, and lifelong conservative currently stuck in a very blue state.