Hey MAGA: It's not called "Cancel Culture," it's called "Consequence Culture."
Nothing more pathetic than the victimhood of the right.
Another day, another right-wing person makes bigoted comments and then —in response to criticism—claims to be the victim of “cancel culture.” There’s nothing more pathetic than the victimhood of the right—especially when invoked by wealthy, white men.
The latest example involves just that type of person: Scott Adams—the creator of the once popular “Dilbert” comic strip that lampoons corporate culture. Adams recently spewed an undeniably racist online rant calling Black Americans a “hate group” and urging White people to “get the hell away” from them. He also made dangerously irresponsible comments—as I note below—that the media has all but ignored that need to be addressed because they could incite violence against Black Americans.
In response to a fierce backlash that has led to hundreds of newspapers to drop his comic strip, he whined about being targeted for “cancellation.” In reality, this is not “cancel culture,” it’s called “consequence culture”--where people are rightfully held accountable for their words and actions.
Adams is just another example of the era we live in where people on the right will say racist or bigoted remarks and then play the victim card, invoking “cancel culture” to silence criticism. These people’s idea of freedom of expression is that they are free to spew all the hate-filled garbage they want and in response we must be silent. That is not how free speech works. People will and should counter their bigotry to make it clear that it’s wrong.
What triggered this latest episode of “consequence culture” was Adams’ bigoted diatribe Wednesday on his YouTube show, “Real Coffee with Scott Adams.” The Trump loving Adams cited a poll by Rasmussen – a pro MAGA conservative polling company—that found 53% of Black Americans agreed with the statement, “It’s OK to be White.” If that phrase strikes you as odd, it’s because as The Anti-Defamation League has noted, it was made popular in the white supremacist movement as a way to troll liberals. Says a lot about Rasmussen that they are using a white supremacist coined phrase in their poll—but if you check out Rasmussen’s Twitter feed, you will see it’s nothing more than a MAGA messaging outlet.
These polls results caused Adams to hysterically cry out that, “If nearly half of all Blacks are not OK with White people…that’s a hate group.” Adams added about Blacks, “I don’t want to have anything to do with them.”
Adams then went even further: “I don’t think it makes any sense as a white citizen of America to try to help Black citizens anymore…There’s no longer a rational impulse. So I’m going to back off on being helpful to Black America because it doesn’t seem like it pays off.” Based on one poll Adams is telling he’s done with helping Black people, although It’s not clear how Adams helped Blacks before this. In fact, MSNBC’s Joy Reid mockingly stated on her show Monday night about Adams, “Well, how will Black folk ever survive without you?!”
Adams then offered advice to his fellow white conservatives: “I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to White people is to get the hell away from Black people, just get the f**k away…because there is no fixing this.” I imagine the ghosts of segregationists were cheering this sentiment.
But Adams also said something that has not been picked up by all the media outlets yet is deeply alarming because it’s not only a lie, it could also potentially incite violence against Blacks. Adams told his fans that he was “really sick of seeing video after video of Black Americans beating up non-Black citizens.” He added that “every damn day” he sees a clip of “some Black person beating the shit out of some white person.”
This false claim is a go to for white supremacists in stoking hate of Black Americans. Adams’ beloved Trump shared a similar lie by away of Tweet during the 2016 campaign that claimed Black people were disproportionately killing white people. That dangerously misleading tweet caused a swift backlash against Trump.
In reality, past Department of Justice studies have found that crimes—including murder—are intra-racial in that Whites and Blacks overwhelmingly target people within their own race. But facts don’t matter to bigots.
Given Adams’ comments it’s not a surprising that a wide swath of newspapers no longer want to be associated with him. The Washington Post, Houston Chronicle and the USA Today Network that includes USA Today and more than 300 local media outlets in 43 state were among the publications announcing they would no longer be printing Adams’ cartoon.
In response to the backlash, Adams first defended his comments by tweeting that he was only “advising people to avoid hate.” It wasn’t long though until Adams claimed he was the real victim, stating on Saturday, “By Monday, I should be mostly canceled,” adding, “My reputation for the rest of my life is destroyed. You can't come back from this."
Aww, poor multi-millionaire Adams, whose estimated net worth is $75 million dollars. He is being held accountable for his words- -which as of now he has not apologized for but instead defended.
This is not the first time Adams has invoked white victimhood for his own failings. In June 2020, Adams responded to the TV network UPN’s cancellation of his “Dilbert” animated primetime TV series by tweeting, “I lost my TV show for being white when UPN decided it would focus on an African American audience. That was the third job I lost for being white.” In reality--as Variety detailed--the show was canceled because of a huge drop in ratings.
In this case, Adams was not just vocally criticized, various publications no longer wanted to be associated with him. It’s odd that Adams is so upset by this given that the media outlets are in essence taking Adams own advice to “just get the f**k away” from him “because there is no fixing this.”
This is what consequence culture looks like. If you don’t like consequences, then don’t spew hate. It’s really that simple.