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As some are already aware, Huff Po is attempting to cancel the controversial writer/pundit Richard Hanania over some far-right posts he wrote a decade ago under an alias, which has been tied to his real identity. This coincides with his release of his book by Harper Collins, with the intent to have the publisher cancel it. v
The Huffington Post article: https://archive.is/YbIpz
(it would have been a 'boss move' had Elon suspended Huff Po account over this, declaring 'cancel culture is over'. )
There is already a prediction market about it, with 80 percent 'yes' it will be published
https://manifold.markets/AnonPlz/will-harper-collins-publish-richard
I agree overall though that nothing bad will happen to him, as I discuss here on my own blog post. First, cancellation does not work that well on academics/pundits as it does on other professions/careers (such as tenure). Even top CEOs are easier to cancel than pundits. Second, the left's credibility has been eroded in recent years due to hoxes , fake news, and 'mission creep' (when everyone is a racist or other bad person, the term loses its meaning/potency).
I think the fine folks over at the Huffington Post had a pretty clear goal in mind. Fortify the media landscape and the Overton Window. Make noise about Hanania and then attempt to squeeze him out behind the scenes through people like Bari Weiss and Ben Shapiro before he is given any traction by them.
As far as I can remember there was a similar gambit against Stephan Molyneux after Dave Rubin decided on having a conversation with him. To that end I'd put my tinfoil hat on and say that the mainstream elements had already decided that this was something that needed to be done prior to the 'dox' thing of Hanania being published.
I think the idea of a 'cancellation' is kind of retarded without properly addressing who is functionally doing the cancelling. Yes, lib/left/progressives hate guys like Hanania. They have already 'cancelled him' by never associating with him and doing everything they can to make him fail. Like, this was always the case. So who is actually cancelling Hanania now and from what? If it's not Musk banning him off twitter, what is actually going on?
Well, it seems simple, now Hanania will never ever be on Joe Rogan or any show that exists in a mainstream sphere of center/right discourse. I.e. the Daily Wire and any affiliates. If you want in with the mainstream right wing grift you can't freely associate with Hanania anymore.
Or maybe that was always the case and now it's just official.
I thought Huffington Post and Gawker and other "new Media" folk of the early 2010s were no longer relevant. But they can still wipe the floor with upstarts like Substack it seems.
I think you are misunderstanding the dynamics at play. The Huffington Post is not cancelling Hanania, mainstream right wingers are. Ben Shapiro and Bari Weiss have certain things they care about a lot more than the inane shibboleths of 'left vs right'. In fact these kinds of gatekeepers for mainstream right politics make no effort to hide their distaste for any outsider who potentially recognizes and therefor threatens their perceived ingroup.
And who can blame them?
A mainstream right winger wrote the huffpo piece?
No. You are still misunderstanding what's going on.
Like I stated in my first post, The Huffington Post and the like had already functionally 'cancelled' Hanania before they ever published anything about him. They did not publish anything from him, they did not report anything positive about him, they would not associate with him or his associates. At best they would slander him. So who can still effectively cancel Hanania after this 'dox' thing drops?
If he is not getting banned from twitter then Elon is not cancelling him. He was already considered a hostile element by the likes of The Huffington Post. So they can't cancel him more than what they had already done. So who can cancel Hanania? People who would or could potentially have worked with him!
Bari Weiss is tagged in the twitter thread because she can effectively gatekeep Hanania from the only gate he could potentially walk through to get more mainstream. That gate being the likes of The Daily Wire, Joe Rogan and any other smaller connected mainstream center/right wing media. If that gate is locked, Hanania can go nowhere and can't easily grow beyond the dissident right containment zone. That's the point of this 'dox' thing.
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