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Wow. Trump Derangement Syndrome has killed Tenacious D. On stage in Australia yesterday, when asked to make a birthday wish, Kyle said "Don't miss trump next time."
Today, Jack Black cancelled their tour and appears to have killed the band.
I've found the reactions of intense disappointment that Trump wasn't murdered to be really disappointing but unsurprising. My parents (who I was with when it happened and I broke the news to them) immediately expressed disappointment that he was still alive. Watching people post these sentiments publicly online as if they are completely unaware that advocating for the assassination of your political opponents is really bad and completely unacceptable has left me amazed. How can people not realize that it's a bridge too far? They're literally saying that to preserve democracy, they need to assassinate the leading candidate, a level of cognitive dissonance beyond anything I've seen.
That said, I also find the current cancelations hilarious. The very people who are calling Trump "literally hitler" are now pearl clutching that it's not okay to try kill Hitler. The catastrophizing wasn't acceptable before either - maybe this snapped people out of their delusions?
I was surprised by my own reaction, too. I was a lot happier that he survived, and a lot more impressed with his immediate response than I expected to be. Trump grew in my esteem a lot.
The right has been claiming a lot of scalps lately, generally using the same playbook the left used in 2020-21.
@Libsoftiktok has been particularly egregious, going after minor government employees and restaurant workers for things they said on social media. It's disappointing and hypocritical, but it's a good thing that cancellation is no longer a leftist superweapon. Now that both sides have the bomb, perhaps we can have a Cold War instead of a hot one. One can hope.
Perhaps along these lines, my Twitter feed is full of viral posts from conservatives who have accepted Kyle Gass's apology and urge people NOT to cancel Tenacious D.
But I do agree that the most hilarious thing about this whole episode is "Trump is literally Hitler and we are praying for his speedy recovery".
LoTT has been going absolutely scorched earth, and in the heat of the moment it pleased me in the spirit of "the left is getting a taste of their cancel culture medicine". Then had a moment of shame that I've been cheering collective punishment: I have zero evidence that any given person who locker-room-talks "too bad he missed" has had any involvement whatsoever in destroying people's lives over the past 8 years.
So it's back to being liberal about speech. Back to Voltaire/Hall for me.
I just went back and reread a lot of old discussions about "the ok hand gesture", "all lives matter", "it's ok to be white", and damore.
It reminded me why I ran out of any sympathy or mercy in 2020.
I understand the frustration. I share it. But unfortunately if one responds in kind then we are doomed to a cycle of hatred and retaliation. Peace is only possible when one side is willing to stick to it even at the risk of being stabbed in the back.
It's been decades of backstabbing.
They can give Gina Carano her job back. They can release the guys in prison for "hate crimes" because they left tire marks on a gay crosswalk. They can say "sorry" to that kid they lynched for smiling. They can stop letting DEI departments throw away people's resumes for not being leftist. They can stop using lawfare to "reduce the comfort & regularity with which those who do not accept climate change science speak". They can stop the deplatforming campaigns against anyone who tries to publish books critical of them...
If they want peace they can ask for it.
At the very least I have a list of names who still post here who could apologize for what they said about those earlier cases and admit they were wrong.
None of them are stepping up, because they don't think they were wrong to hurt those people.
They can stop this at any time, but because they won't it's not going to stop until their power is absolutely broken.
And that's going to take a lot of pain.
Yeah unfortunately that's not how it works. Repaying hate with hate just makes them double down. They will say "we were right to hate these people, let's put the screws to them even more". If your goal is to get the madness to stop, making the perpetrators feel pain is not going to advance it.
Unilaterally surrendering also won't stop the madness.
Ok, fine. But refraining from reprisals is still a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for peace.
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