Cancellation and Violence

By Michael Brendan Dougherty

Monday, September 15, 2025

 

Is it wrong for conservatives who spent the last decade complaining about cancel culture to publicize the ugly statements of some liberals and progressives about Charlie Kirk’s death in an effort to get them fired?

 

Some argue that it is.

Now, there are many cases where I would agree with Sachs. I’ve seen examples of people calling for the firing or punishment of people on social media for merely saying incorrect or unkind things about Charlie Kirk.  I also just inherently dislike the idea of making tattle lists. I’ve seen the content of the lists people are making, and they include many people who are just saying something mildly insensitive or churlish.

 

There are other cases, especially among teachers and doctors, where I disagree and think we are dealing with a different phenomenon. I think people who publicly revel in bloodlust, or whose celebratory posts about a murder include names of others who should be targeted next, shouldn’t be in sensitive positions. They should be held to a higher behavioral standard.

 

I think of the paradigmatic example of cancel culture was Brendan Eich, who was fired from his position at Mozilla because he had supported a California ballot proposition that reinstated the definition of marriage as one between one man and one woman. Eich’s firing was part of a wider campaign in which leaked information was used to target and harass people for peaceably participating in the political process and cultural contestation. The view he expressed seems to me not just reasonable and defensible but is also one that is in some ways obliged on him and me by our shared religion.

 

I would not have opposed Eich’s firing if the precipitating event had been a social media post in which he lustily celebrated the violent murder of someone he considered a political opponent, and particularly if that celebration was meant to further intimidate roughly half of his fellow citizens into silence. I don’t think it’s some kind of high hypocrisy to say that the critique of cancel culture wasn’t intended to protect all speech from normative judgment, but to preserve the necessary space for democratic deliberation and contestation.