I don’t know about you, however, when I think of acting talent, I think of Scott Baio, Tim Allen, Jon Voight, James Woods, Kelsey Grammer, Rob Schneider, and Roseanne Barr. Based upon their apparent fondness for an incompetent wannabe authoritarian fraudulent convicted felon like Trump and Trump’s penchant for mass deportations, wealth concentration, murderous dictators and white christian nationalism -it saddens me to think I can never truly relax and enjoy an episode of Fraser ever again. And of course missing anything in which Scott Baio, Tim Allen, or Rob Schnieder have a major role (not sure if that actually excludes any movies or shows that are watchable other than perhaps, “Happy Days”).

And yes, ever since the 2016 election cycle, and the resulting Supreme Court appointments, I cannot watch Susan Sarandon in anything, even when she’s cast with Willem Defoe. It is impossible to see her and not think of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy “Coathanger” Barrett, Aileen Cannon, and Matthew J. Kacsmaryk.

As far as the music scene goes, I’ve had to go back and destroy all of my Ted Nugent, Kid Rock, and Jason Aldean’s Albums and CD’s. Or I might if I had any -however, in spite of eclectic musical tastes ranging from John Lennon to Wyclef Jean, Laurie Anderson to Radiohead -my tastes don’t range into unlistenable cacophony.

We’ve all heard the horribly sad cries of “Marxist, communist, socialist liberal Democrats are canceling us! So-called “free-speech” advocates like Elon Musk and Joe Rogan rush in to rescue these distraught “entertainers” from obscurity. Are they truly “cancelled” though? There seems to be a simple societal formula that goes something like this:

When the repulsiveness or deplorability of the individual is greater than their talent, the majority of people are not interested in being reminded of the existence of the semi-famous who are hatefully and/or willfully ignorant, with a platform to amplify their ignorance.

As you read this you might be thinking, sure, no one wants to see Rob Schneider attempt the leading role in “From Here to Eternity” it’s not that he is censored or cancelled by woke liberals as Rob might complain.
However there are people who are censored. There are people who actually deserve a platform for their intellectual ideas, concerns about societal direction, and thoughts about climate and conflict. A respectful competition of ideas and concepts predicated upon science, facts, and evidence.
Instead we get nearly 24x7 media platform coverage every time Trump attempts to put a coherent sentence together, Elon Musk sharing his ignorance with the world on yet another global issue, or RFK Jr. and his brain worm disparaging vaccinations because, woohoo -Measles and Polio can be fun again!

But sure. Tell us more about “cancel culture”.

And some speech is not free speech. Hate speech, inciting violence, perpetrating fraud, and threats are not protected. (And yes, pretty much everything Trump says is not Constitutionally protected free speech).

So while the talentless scream, cry, and express outrage about “cancel culture”, there are new words, concepts, and issues arising almost daily that triggers a new wave of outrage (and subsequently, a new chapter in Heritage Foundation’s anti-democracy Project 2025, a new section in Trump/MAGA’s Agenda 47, and more white noise emanating from Fox “News”, Sinclair Broadcasting, or other sources of lies, propaganda, and disinformation.

And I thought we should talk about triggering words in the following section.

• Woke: A vile obscenity used to describe someone who is aware of issues such as privilege, injustice, social inequality, racism, civil rights, human rights, misogyny, and xenophobia.

• Climate Change, Climate Collapse, Climate Catastrophe: A horrible phrase used to demean the Oil and Coal industries and blame them for excess carbon trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere leading to extreme weather events, massive fires, disastrous hurricanes, typhoons, and flooding, prolonged droughts, rising temperatures, shrinking polar ice caps, and the resulting death, destruction, and threats to the ability for the Earth to sustain future life.

• Books: It is no coincidence that “book” is a four-letter word. Books can provide an overview of history and context for understanding important events. Books can inform, create empathy, and fuel compassion. They can educate and inform (two of three vital pillars of any attempt at a meaningful democracy). Books can lead obedient little hyper-consuming patriots down a dangerous path questioning religious authority, economic theories such as the GOP fraud of “trickle-down”, or the erosion of voting rights and civil rights. This is what makes libraries such a subversive concept. A place where there are free (SOCIALIST!) books that can be borrowed. And consider the insidious nature of books. Children would not need bulletproof backpacks if it were not for having to carry books.

  

• The Elites!

  • Academic: The academic intellectual elite undermine our patriotic spirit. They know fancy words and phrases due to their outsized education and scholarly research and might discuss concepts such as justice, equality, democracy, nuclear winter, or anthropogenic climate change. They might make claims that our government is actually a democracy (at least an attempt at one) according to Constitutional “know-it-all” Professor Lawrence Lessig. Those elite intellectuals like Noam Chomsky might have the gall to criticize U.S. foreign policy and military adventures in El Salvador and Chile when we propped up murderous dictators and wealth inequality. They might describe actual history like Howard Zinn or relate historical events to their current context like Professor Heather Cox Richardson. Or John Kenneth Galbraith might talk about how trickle-down economics really works (if your objective is to concentrate wealth to the top and create extreme wealth inequality). Or some science nerd like Carl Sagan might provide perspective reminding us that we exist on a tiny blue life raft in a vast universe so that maybe we could live in peaceful cooperation with people born elsewhere and protect our planetary home.

  • Hollywood -The Hollywood elite can be as dangerous as books, and in some cases, more so. First, the Hollywood elite possess a platform to distribute content through movie theaters, streaming, and television. They can take a blissfully obedient patriot and turn them into a communist by producing a film like “It’s a Wonderful Life”. They can cause people to question political authority with films like “The Majestic” or “Guilty By Suspicion”. They can undermine important American racist values through programming like “All in the Family” or “The Smothers Brothers”. They can subvert minds by embodying allegorical stories about greed, willful ignorance, prejudice, and morality in shows like Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone” or Gene Roddenberry’s “Star Trek”. Or even directly undermine blind patriotism with films like “Apocalypse Now” or “The Thin Red Line”. While not everyone reads, many people will sit passively through an entertaining film or television program and then be brainwashed by the Hollywood elite.

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

• Journalist: Enemies “of the people”. If Bernstein and Woodward hadn’t exposed Nixon’s crimes, would those crimes have actually occurred? Journalists are responsible for “Weaponizing” (see below) investigative reporting (something that used to be associated with a historical concept called “The Fourth Estate”).

  

• Abortion: Few words are as derisive as something implying that a woman can have control of her own body via reproductive rights.

  Heritage Foundation/Project 2025/Agenda 47 think it’s vital for birth vessels, oops, I mean women to bake cookies and crank out future little patriots for the good of your husband, church, and growing little family.

• LGBTQ+: Having to bestow rights upon anyone who isn’t wealthy, white, and male is simply anti-1950’s America (or arguably, anti-1770’s, anti-originalist America).

• GVP: This is a Constitutional outrage! When some liberal pinko commie says “Gun Violence Prevention” -we know it means you’re coming for our AR-15’s -and you can pry them from our cold, dead hands.

  

  

  

  

  

  

• CRT: Critical Race Theory is liberal code for teaching children about actual history. Hey “snowflakes” -how can we expect our little patriots to grow up reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, or stand for our National Anthem when they are thinking about the slaughter of indigenous tribes and the Trail of Tears, the horrors of kidnapping and enslaving people (or job apprenticeship programs as Ron DeFascist calls them), and helping them understand systemic racism that continues to exist in the DNA of the United States?

• DEI: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion -another TLLA (three-letter liberal acronym). It is yet another insidious socialist plot. If you have to have a DEI program, you are admitting that maybe, just maybe, society hasn’t evolved beyond systemic racism and misogyny. And if you admit that, some free-thinking little patriots might do some reading on their own and find a banned book on (GASP!) CRT.

• ESG: Environmental, Social, and Governance -another TLLA causing people who were blissfully ignorant hyper-consumers doing their patriotic duty to grow the economy to consider that their investments (if they are so lucky!) and/or their purchases are effectively powering a corporation. A person is getting a product and/or a service, and the company is getting money. ESG is another subversive attempt to educate and inform people so instead of blindly buying stuff, they can decide -is this a company that deserves my business (think of companies that use a credit bureau to decide -does this person deserve my product or service?) Knowledge is power, and providing this knowledge to otherwise blissfully ignorant hyper-consumers is clearly a communist thug liberal monster plot.

• Equality: The concept of equality is preposterous. When people like Elon Musk are handed wealth by mommy and daddy who earned their abundance through hard work (other people’s hard work in Zambian emerald mines) or Donald J. Trump who inherits substantial wealth from his tax evading, racist father Fred, they are not equal to you or I.
  Even the Supreme Court has ruled that money is speech, and therefore by being handed and/or inheriting extreme wealth -your opinions outweigh scholarly concepts. Inequality is settled law. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get over it. For example, who wants to hear about Constitutional law from Lawrence Lessig, systemic poverty from Barbara Ehrenreich, racism from James Baldwin, U.S. foreign policy criticisms from Noam Chomsky, or history from Heather Cox Richardson -when Elon Musk can buy a massive communication platform like Twitter and then agree with and amplify antisemitic or other hate speech on the platform. (https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/16/elon-musk-calls-antisemitic-tweet-the-actual-truth.html) If Lessig, Chomsky, or Robert Reich have something important to say -then they should buy Twitter, Facebook, or a television network like everyone else.

  

• Illegals!: People marching across our border, voting hundreds of times, selling drugs, taking all of our high-paying executive positions, and stealing our birth vessels women. This is triggering since patriotic minds don’t read about how U.S. Foreign Policy has directly led to conditions of extreme wealth concentration, poverty, and violence in places where people are now trying to escape for the opportunity of a better life. It’s like burning down your neighbor’s apartment building and then being angry when they want to rent space in your building.

  

• Tax Fairness: This is a ridiculous concept promoted by communist and socialist losers. People who have inherited massive fortunes, have exploited workers, and/or have bent economic policies to accumulate generational wealth are Capitalist heroes! There should be parades for them, not tax liability. Just ask Tom Perkins or Peter Thiel.

  

  

  

  

  

  

• Weaponized!: This is a new word being used to describe the things MAGA/GOP does while attributing it do liberal loser woke socialist Democrats.
  For example, the IRS pursuing billionaires who evade their tax liability -THE IRS IS WEAPONIZED AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE! If they can confiscate my private jet -they can come for yours too. Or, more commonly -I’M BEING PERSECUTED BY THE (JUDGE/DOJ/JACK SMITH/ROBERT MUELLER) BECAUSE I’M A MAGA REPUBLICAN PATRIOT AND THEY ARE WEAPONIZED AGAINST ME!!! (Not because I’ve attempted to blackmail allies, committed fraud, assaulted women, obstructed justice, incited an insurrection, undermined the election process, or attempted to interfere with the Constitutional transfer of power in the United States. And nothing helps focus on a new word like a Congressional House Committee led by geniuses like Jim Jorden and James Comer (Pyle) gathering “evidence” from Russian agents and spies. (https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4483740-comer-says-indicted-fbi-informant-wasnt-an-important-part-of-this-investigation/)

  

  

  So there you have it. Outrage!.

  And now it has been “Weaponized!” Because it’s much easier to shout than to have policy discussions based upon facts, evidence, and science.