The Right Is Changing Cancel Culture’s Rules

For the past decade, the political Right has lamented “cancel culture.” The idea was that the Left unfairly stoked race and gender hysteria to restrict the terms of debate and to cast anyone deemed in violation of the mandated terms into a state of social annihilation. Teenagers who sang along with rap songs have been denied entry into college. Political figures who failed to use the latest euphemisms found themselves cast into the void. 

Now, with the second Trump administration, the rules of social annihilation are seemingly being rewritten in real time. The presidential appointments of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Pete Hegseth might have been derailed, or not even attempted, in Trump’s first presidency. Yet, despite the salacious accusations against the two nominees, Senate Republicans held firm and confirmed both men.