Victor Davis Hanson on Cancel Culture's Backlash After Charlie Kirk's Death

The Evolution of Cancel Culture

• 💡 For the past five years, cancel culture has been used to suppress free speech through deplatforming, doxing, and blacklisting those who voice illiberal ideas.
• 📌 This tactic often led to individuals losing their jobs, as seen with Hollywood figures and professors during the #MeToo movement and in discussions following George Floyd's death.

The Charlie Kirk Incident and Free Speech

• 🚀 The recent death of Charlie Kirk has seemingly turned the tables on cancel culture, with those criticizing him post-mortem facing backlash.
• 💬 Platforms are now distancing themselves, not necessarily to censor, but to avoid controversy, a phenomenon compared to the "Joy Reid treatment."
• 🎯 Columnist Karen Attia's criticism of Kirk as a "racist white man" after his assassination highlights a fatigue with race-centric discussions in media.

George Floyd vs. Iryna Zarutska Comparisons

• ⚖️ The left used George Floyd's death to advance an agenda claiming police systematically killed unarmed black males, a premise Hanson argues was empirically false.
• 📊 Studies, like Roland Fryer's, indicated that unarmed black suspects were not disproportionately killed by police compared to their demographic representation.
• ⚠️ In contrast, the murder of Iryna Zarutska brought attention to the disproportionate involvement of a specific demographic (African-American males aged 15-40) in violent and rare interracial crimes.

Data, Accuracy, and Respect for the Dead

• 🔍 Hanson emphasizes the importance of accuracy and evidence when discussing sensitive events, contrasting the data-supported reality of the Zarutska case with the unsubstantiated claims surrounding George Floyd.
• 🗣️ He argues that criticizing the deceased, like Kirk, violates the traditional period of grace and requires factual support, which was lacking in the George Floyd narrative but present in discussions about crime demographics.
• ✅ Criticizing Kirk for pointing out demographic realities in crime was deemed unfair, especially after his death, and led to people losing their jobs.