Why does it seem only sane people get canceled?

(AP Photo/The Columbus Dispatch, Eric Albrecht)

I’m asking this for a very good reason, born of frustration, but it’s no doubt just more shaking an angry fist at the sky for all the good it does asking.

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When you look at the vast swath of people who have been targeted for cancellation, overwhelmingly it’s a Leftist mob swarming, usually on some wildly out-of-proportion pretext. They’ve blown up over an innocuous comment or outright factual statement from an individual whose politics – in most cases, but not always – don’t align with what the in-crowd approves. Oh, and they will happily eat their own, if they step a toe outside the boundaries, especially if they had only been marginally acceptable members of the collective to begin with.

Gina Carano, Tim Allen, Chris Pratt, Ricky Gervais, Dave Chappell, and musician Winston Marshall are recent recipients of entertainment cancellations or attempts to do so because their beliefs don’t march in lockstep with the arbiters of “what is acceptable.” They are, to their credit, staying true to who they are. Some have had to claw their way back into public view, but Americans are responding supportively.

Chaya Raichak, Twitter’s “Libs of TikTok” owner, went through a terrifying ordeal being hounded by deranged, obsessive reporter Taylor Lorenz for the sin of retweeting already publicly available TikTok videos of individuals being their true, duplicitous, revolting, insane selves. Raichak neither edited nor manipulated what she retweeted in any way. What you saw was only what had been uploaded by the maker of the original video. What so horrified Americans – and panicked liberal Leftists like Lorenz – was the fact that these were REAL. Suddenly all the fanciful, cuddly stories of harmless trans-types, CRT advocates and uber-liberal classroom teachers were proven to be lies. These people are scary, malevolent, already in place to do harm, and they ARE REAL. And pretty damn proud of themselves.

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For the gross violation of exposing these vermin to the sunlight, Raichak had to be destroyed, and they did their darndest.

For all the unrelenting, shrieking eel attention focused on Raichak, it was absolutely gobsmacking how little of it blew back on Taylor Lorenz in light of her, in a couple of instances, borderline criminal stalking behavior. Even with Tucker Carlson pouring the scorn on

The New York Times responded Wednesday to Tucker Carlson one day after the Fox News host targeted reporter Taylor Lorenz during his primetime show.

“In a now familiar move, Tucker Carlson opened his show last night by attacking a journalist,” said a statement from the paper’s communications team. “It was a calculated and cruel tactic, which he regularly deploys to unleash a wave of harassment and vitriol at his intended target.”

The statement, posted to Twitter, went on, “Taylor Lorenz is a talented New York Times journalist doing timely and essential reporting. Journalists should be able to do their jobs without facing harassment.”

…and even as Lorenz took a blow-torch to her own mates in the pressroom, the aged tween princess kept – and still keeps – her job. And claims victimhood status to boot.

How is that possible?

That’s a recurring theme in these instances. Where the actual outrageous behavior is perpetrated by those in the cancel mob vice the object of the pitchforks and torches. The mob accomplishes their public evisceration of the marked target, pats themselves on the back for damage inflicted and ignores whatever insanity, mendacity or blatant hypocrisy it cost to get them to that point.

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This brings me to a piece I read yesterday. It is so far beyond the pale, but so perfect an illustration of the dichotomy at work in the liberal mind between “them” and “us,” and what/who is cancellable that I had to shake that fist.

Let’s set the stage: Germany, this weekend.

On Saturday night in Hanover’s main opera house, Marco Goecke, a renowned German choreographer, smeared dog feces from his aging dachshund, Gustav, on the face of a dance critic.

A “renowned” choreographer was demented enough – psychotic enough – to follow his wiener dog around, save the poo, take it to work with him…and schmear it on a “critic’s” face.

Got that? Gets better.

The critic was a woman.

…Wiebke Hüster, the critic Mr. Goecke attacked, said in an interview this week that she had been so stunned when it happened that she began to scream. As soon as she composed herself, she said, she reported the incident to the police.

Ms. Berman [opera house artistic director], who was alerted shortly after the incident occurred, said it left bystanders “frightened he might do something else.”

Ya think? He sounds pret-tee dang unstable to me.

You won’t be surprised to hear, though, that he’s also The Victim™.

…Newspaper coverage of the incident, though, had focused only on the dog feces, he said, whereas he wanted to start a debate about what should be allowed in arts criticism. Newspaper critics, he said, should not write in “a personal and hateful way,” especially when theaters and opera houses were still trying to tempt audiences back after pandemic shutdowns and interruptions.

“I’m still not free of this anger,” Mr. Goecke said. Ms. Hüster had written just two positive pieces about his work during his career, he said, and he felt many of her reviews were attempts to damage him.

“If I’d been a woman and the critic a man, this would be seen differently,” he said.

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QUIT TALKING ABOUT DOG POO!

A critic was critical, so she got what was coming to her, and everyone’s only mad because I’m a guy.

I think I interpreted that correctly.

You or I would be in jail for assault. It literally pays to be artistic and one of “them.” So, Goecke lost his gig as the ballet director for the opera house – I guess they had to do something. But unlike you or I, that’s gonna be about the only paycheck canceled.

…But Mr. Goecke’s career is far from over. In a telephone interview, Ms. Berman said the Hanover State Ballet would continue to perform his work; on Feb. 24, his piece “Hello Earth” will be part of a triple bill. Mr. Goecke’s works are “incomparable,” Ms. Berman said, and his art should be viewed separately from the unjustifiable incident.

I do not believe in cancel culture,” she added.

And Mr. Goecke will retain his position with the Nederlands Dans Theater, an acclaimed Dutch company, for which he is an associate choreographer. On Tuesday, in a statement posted online, the company said that Mr. Goecke’s behavior was “contrary to our values” but that he had apologized.

Oh. Apology is accepted by people who were not schmeared with dog poo because they need his product and, coincidentally, that’s also the reason the opera house artistic director doesn’t believe in cancel culture. She needs him.

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Even though she doesn’t get what the psychopath did…

…“No one wants to see someone who is capable of creating such amazing dance work stop,” Ms. Berman said. “But at the same time nobody can understand what he did,” she added.

…bottom line comes first. *shrug* He’s usually very polite.

The article mentions this psychopath’s previous outbursts but they’re quickly followed by comments from friends or colleagues which move back to his “genius.” No one addresses poor Ms. Hüster’s trauma ever again, just that she’ll never attend another of Goecke’s ballets. It’s all about protecting this walking time bomb.

Who still has his various jobs and a puff piece in the NY Times gently explaining the pressure he’s under.

They won’t cancel him for attacking a woman in the face with dog excrement because he’s one of them and she’s the enemy. Besides, #MeToo was so two years ago.

Them and us.

None of us listening to Gov Sarah Huckabee Sanders needed a pie chart explaining who she was referring to.

Or a definition of the “crazy.” There’s one provided practically every single day.

We normal types are on overload at this point and up to our eyeballs in the crazy dog poo.

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Ed Morrissey 12:40 PM | November 21, 2024
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