TheQuartering [8/11/2021]
Everyone is blaming cancel culture.
Actor Alec Baldwin lamented the resignation of Democrat New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday, blaming “cancel culture” even after the state’s attorney general concluded Cuomo had sexually harassed multiple women.
“Regardless of what you think of Cuomo, this is a tragic day,” Baldwin tweeted. “Party politics in this country draw ambitious but ultimately isolated, even socially maladjusted men and women who, given the current cancel culture, will likely have their shortcomings exposed and magnified.”
This is a clear misuse of the common meaning of the phrase. Cancel culture is not about people being punished for doing evil, but them being punished for doing perfectly legitimate or unremarkable things, typically wildly out of proportion to their supposed offense. Federalist writer Tristan Justice defines it as the “deliberate de-platforming or ultimate unemployment of an individual for views fraudulently held to be outside an increasingly turbulent public square, often featuring past statements dug up in bad faith to deploy online mobs against the dissident.”
Cuomo made his resignation Tuesday, a week after the report was released. There was significant pressure from the New York legislature to resign and threats of impeachment looming. The investigation reviewed 179 witnesses and 74,000 pieces of evidence.