Conservative media has spent much of the last week either letting Donald Trump go back to spreading dangerous lies about voter fraud or getting angry over Muppets. And Mr. Potato Head. And now Dr. Seuss. Don Jr. has already had his share of apoplectic fits about most of these matters, and on Tuesday it was Tomi Lahren’s turn. The Fox News host had a bone to pick with what the right has deemed “cancel culture,” and she had an idea on how to fight it: more canceling.
Fox News devoted much of Tuesday to spittle over Dr. Seuss Enterprising personally yanking six of their books from publication due to racist imagery. It wasn’t the result of some targeting progressive campaign; the organization decided to remove them from the marketplace themselves. Mr. Theodor Geisel wrote over 60 books, and it’s unlikely even die hard Seussfiles will miss such deep cut titles as McElligott’s Pool, If I Ran the Zoo, and On Beyond Zebra!, all of which will still exist in some form.
But none of that stopped Fox News personalities from going full culture war. Lahren appeared on one amped-up panel, warning that the left is “going to cancel everyone.” But she had a solution: do the very thing they’re accusing the left of doing, which they might not be doing in the first place.
“It’s time we start fighting back,” Lahren fumed. “It’s time we start canceling the companies that cancel other people, that cancel other ideas and say, ‘Hey listen, we don’t like how radical you’re being with your cancel culture so we’re not going to shop there.’”
She then added, “It’s time that we join together in numbers like the way the cancel culture mob has done so and fight back!”
It’s an interesting ploy, this idea of doing the thing you allegedly abhor. Alas, it’s already something the right has been doing, and for decades. Parker Molloy, of Media Matters for America, was quick to point out the long list of organizations the right has already tried to boycott, or “cancel,” in the past and/or the present.
https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1366803409735712771
In other words, Lahren’s cunning plan is already in full swing, and has been for some time. That was easy.
In the meantime, contrary to what Fox News says, you can head to Disney+ and watch the vast majority of The Muppet Show, a handful of whose episodes come with warnings about objectionable content the streamer decided it was best not to censor. While the GOP is busy ranting and raving, you can spend your time falling back in love with Rowlf.
(Via The Daily Beast)