Liberal ‘cancel culture’? GOP bans anything it disagrees with – USA TODAY

opinion

When Republican lawmakers and talking heads speak these days, this is what I hear:

I HATE liberal cancel culture and believe in absolute free speech! I would also like to ban, do away with or silence Disney, NPR, Bud Light, the FBI and CIA, this big pile of books over here, M&Ms, Mr. Potatohead, college professors, any Democratic lawmaker I dont want to hear speak, wokeness, any mention of diversity, drag shows, people who defend drag shows, people who defend people who defend drag shows, any mention whatsoever of the existence of LGBTQ people, this other big pile of books over here, the entire Department of Education, PBS and Oreos.

It all makes perfect sense if you have too much time on your hands and too few functioning brain cells to process the meaning of the word hypocrisy. And it confirms that todays mainstream Republican Party the party of Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has become the party of cancel culture, a bubble-dwelling collection of right-wing caricatures who speak an intolerant and often conspiratorial language most regular Americans, and particularly most younger Americans, cant understand.

And it's happening all over the country.

Consider a recent comment from DeSantis when he was asked about the possibility of Elon Musk relocating Twitters headquarters to Florida: You know, I know Elon Musk, and what I would tell him is like, Ok, if youre going to move Twitter to Florida, are you bringing woke employees to Florida or are you bringing just your people? If its just his people then it may be good.

So the woke are unwelcome. People who disagree with DeSantis anti-woke stance whatever that happens to be, since it changes from day to day are unwelcome.

DeSantis continued to praise Musks attempts to de-woke-ify the social media platform: So I really applaud him for taking on Twitter, trying to moor it back towards facts and truth and stop (parroting) the ideology and trying to censor beliefs that conflict with it.

Allow me to translate that into English: DeSantis is glad Musk is silencing people he disagrees with because, in his mind, that will stop them from trying to censor things they believe are wrong.

Its worth keeping in mind the things the woke at Twitter want to ban include: Nazis, bigots, misogynists, racists and others spouting violent rhetoric. That, by DeSantis logic, is bad. That stifles free speech. And the best way to stop that free-speech stifling is to silence the woke and not welcome them to your state.

Some conservatives will argue this kind of thinking the thinking that leads a governor like DeSantis to try to cancel a huge corporation like Disney because it spoke out against one of his policies is not what the Republican Party is all about. To that I say: Prove it. Because as best I can tell these days, that is ALL the Republican Party is about, a grand old departure from the partys previous belief in limiting government intrusion into peoples lives.

In states like Tennessee, North Dakota, Montana and Oklahoma, GOP lawmakers are working to ban drag shows.

Republican-led legislatures in Florida, Iowa, Utah, Indiana and several other states have taken away a parents right to get gender-affirming care for a transgender child.

Florida passed DeSantis now-infamous Dont Say Gay law, restricting K-12 teachers from discussing sexuality or gender identity in the classroom.

And Republicans, from high-ranking lawmakers down to small-town school board members, have been banning books at a feverish pace. The non-profit free speech group PEN America studies school book bans and found that last fall, there were 1,477 instances of individual books banned, affecting 874 unique titles, an increase of 28 percent compared to the prior six months.

The group wrote in its report: These efforts to chill speech are part of the ongoing nationwide Ed Scare a campaign to foment anxiety and anger with the goal of suppressing free expression in public education. As book bans escalate, coupled with the proliferation of legislative efforts to restrict teaching about topics such as race, gender, American history, and LGBTQ+ identities, the freedom to read, learn and think continues to be undermined for students.

The Washington Post reported that a New Jersey school board recently rejected a sociology textbook in part because the book gave an accurate description of Michael Brown, who was killed by police in 2014, as an unarmed Black teenager.' The books offense? It didnt also describe Browns size and weight, or that he was scuffling with a cop when killed apparently failing to depict the victim as threatening enough.

A recent Indianapolis Star report said the young-adult shelves at the Hamilton East Public Library in Fishers, Indiana, are mostly empty. Books have been pulled because the librarys conservative-led board ordered a review to suss out any books that might contain profanities, descriptions of criminal acts or any instance of visual depiction of sexual nudity as described or any level of written description, even incidental, of sexual conduct as described.

Protesting the review and possible book bans, Fishers parent Matthew Rhea said during a recent board meeting: As a parent, I believe its my responsibility to watch out for my children, not to have other people watch out for my children. I don't know why other people think they need to help me with my children's education.

In Oklahoma, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt wrapped up the month of April by vetoing a bill that funds the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, one of the nations most-watched Public Broadcasting Service networks. He claimed the network aims to indoctrinate kids.

His evidence? Episodes of Clifford the Big Red Dog and Work it Out Wombats! that included lesbian characters.

Some of the stuff that theyre showing just overly sexualizes our kids, Stitt said, remarkably not choking on the absurdity of that comment.

PBS: Canceled. Transgender kids: Canceled. Woke Twitter employees: Canceled. Bud Light, because the company partnered with a transgender influencer: Canceled. Books that contain a passing profanity or a mention of criminal activity or, heaven forbid, something suggesting that sexual attraction is a thing that exists: Canceled.

This is todays free-speech-loving (as long as its their speech and not yours) Republican Party. The party of un-intrusive government (unless youre up to something that doesnt fit their mainly white, mainly straight and often male world view).

Diversity? Canceled! Equity? Canceled! Inclusion? Canceled!

If I didnt know better, Id say theres something these folks are afraid of. Cant imagine what it might be. But I suppose I should look it up soon before all the books that explain it get banned.

FollowUSA TODAY columnist Rex HuppkeonTwitter@RexHuppkeand Facebookfacebook.com/RexIsAJerk