Let’s cancel the cancel culture
In the 522 days until the 2020 Presidential Election, democrats are quickly applying the same #CANCELLED culture that ended James Charles to their weedy list of candidates. If Democrats want to be successful in 2020 they cannot rely on cancel culture to make their decision for them.
This is not to discount the evident absurdity of some of the Democratic candidates. However, let us not condemn our last hopes for savior from Trumplandia just because we like the hit of adrenaline we get every time someone is trending on Twitter because of a mistake. Cancel culture is a wannabe censure by the media. But we cannot allow the media to function as a unilateral moral compass for the political landscape. Politicians can be skeevy, unreliable and downright problematic– that much has always been known. But we cannot pretend that one ankle bone is enough of a skeleton to throw away the whole closet.
Progressives need to remember that the ultimate goal is to, I don’t know, progress. Instead, democrats are ready to throw candidates under the bus for mild transgressions from vastly different parts of their career. There is simply no room for someone to make small mistakes, learn and move on (otherwise known as progress). Democrats cannot preach the value of consistency and subscribe to cancel culture at the same time. True consistency is not only about minor details in a politicians rhetoric, but also about practicing what is preached. If the party claims to be built on a platform of progress, there needs to be a constant push to center responses and actions around it.
The black and white mentality of this is good and this is bad breeds immature evaluations of these candidates. As a party based on a platform of progression, democrats cannot substitute progress with a bandaid response. Cancel culture creates a cycle where people are put on a pedestal, until they take one step out of line, at which point not only do they fall from said pedestal, but also supposed to fall off the face of the planet. This kind of quick to champion, quick to cancel mentality linearizes human beings in a way that is not compatible with the idea of progress or conducive to a healthy political process.
Cancel culture draws clear lines where they are not meant to exist, essentially simplifying and rewriting the stories of these politicians in the easiest possible way for people to digest. It gives people an easy way out to see exactly what they want to see and it diminishes the political process to flimsy perceptions instead of policies and substance.
