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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   26998 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025

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I'm old enough to remember when the boot was on the other foot and the Red Tribe held enough institutional power that the Dixie Chicks could face lost earnings owing to their criticisms of George Bush.

Ever notice that this is the only example the left ever brings up that's newer than McCarthy?

And it's still nonsense. The Dixie Chicks were "cancelled" for actions done as professionals in the job for which they were "cancelled". There wasn't social media back then, but the equivalent to cancellation would be if they were overheard by a reporter making some anti-American comment while eating lunch, and this got reported worldwide, and they lost their job for it. Or if someone dug out some ten year quote they made in their school newspaper which could be vaguely interpreted as not liking America and they were fired for that.

The reason people got upset about the Dixie Chicks being "cancelled" is that they made their anti-Bush comments to a different audience, and they didn't expect their normal audience to find out about it. This often worked back then, but when it didn't, tough luck--they weren't actually speaking privately just because they wanted it concealed from the wrong audience.

A different audience in Europe. London, specifically.

This particular myth tends to annoy me a great deal, because it's a perfect encapsulation of a tactic I've seen displayed by left-leaning types time and time again - the constant, insistent urge to drag politics into areas that it doesn't really belong(ie, entertainment).

This wasn't Cancel Culture. It was a masks-off moment for a bunch of grifting entertainers that were trying to belong to the Cool Kids Club. Surprise, surprise, the group that made them popular from the start didn't take well to being grifted.

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