The populist dilemma on free speech and cancel culture

But are the populists consistent and serious about the worthlessness of the classical-liberal defense of free speech? Is their critique even popular? Consider: The biggest issue that unites and motivates conservative populists right now is the threat of cancel culture to free speech. But if you listen to conservatives around the country, this is by no means just a populist concern; it is broader even than just a conservative concern. Lots of people are worried about the stifling culture of intolerance and deplatforming on the Internet, on campus, and in the workplace. And they frequently frame those concerns in free-speech terms, and in a reaction against the biased and unfair standards applied by the cancelers. The classical-liberal argument is both popular and populist because it resonates with traditional American values and rhetoric. The actual disagreements between the populists and the classical liberals are in many cases much less than meets the eye.

Populist pundits fret endlessly about this stuff. But in many cases, when people are threatened with “cancellation,” even their most populist defenders will talk more about the value of free speech than about the substance of any particular idea. The firing of Gina Carano by Disney was just one example of this. Her Twitter feed was full of things that were difficult to defend, and the one that was used as a pretext to fire her was a bad Holocaust analogy. Granted, Carano’s problematic statements had virtually nothing to do with her job, and were no nuttier than the political commentary of scores of left-leaning Hollywood personalities. But the chief defense of Carano was not “everything she said was right and the studio should employ her and fire people who say things that are wrong.”