Some ghastly woman who was a clerk at a Home Depot decided to go online and cheer the attempted murder of Donald Trump, that is until conservative social media influencers exposed her to her bosses, and they kicked her malignant carcass to the curb. This cancellation counterstrike – and the growing default to retribution as a means to combat cancellation culture – created significant controversy in the conservative webosphere, with various internet personages taking to the Twitters to cheer or decry it. Many – and I am one of them – heartily support this crushing of our opponents, even puny smallfolk jerks who tweet hate from their basements while buzzed on Trader Joe's chardonnay and catnip. Others – not all for the same reason – see the avenger mode as a bad thing. They are wrong in their conclusion, but the ones who advocate mercy to the minor minions for tactical reasons instead of posturing about principles for clicks are still hardcore. They just disagree on tactics. They are not Jeb!s, goody-goody scolds mortified by the thought of fighting fire with firepower. It's good to disagree in good faith; it's bad to be weak. Regardless, we still need to use our power against even the little people on the other side. Failing to do so leaves the little people on our side defenseless. If we can't break our enemies' will, at least we can avenge the wrongs they did.
We must play by the New Rules, even when it is ugly and unpleasant. If you get off on canceling people, that's lame. But you should enjoy seeing justice done.
The useful folks who are against using social media clout to uncover and cancel internet randos who think it's groovy to applaud the near murder of President Trump, and the actual murder that accompanied the attempt, are not weaklings, saps, or sissies. Advocates for holding fire on the soft targets include Peachy Keenan, David Harsanyi, John Nolte, and Mark Hemingway. I have known and hung out with all of them – there is not a soft bone in their bodies. Their objection to counterattacking random web creeps is not based on fake principles or feigned mercy that is really weakness but on real tactical disagreement. They think doing it is ineffective; they think we should choose different targets. Disagreements like this are not merely fine but necessary. Where everyone conforms, everyone fails.
Their argument is not crazy, though I disagree with it. Their argument is that conservatives make ourselves look bad picking on the puny punks and that our efforts would be better spent on high-profile targets. Essentially, they argue that punching down is a bad tactic – that it hurts us more than helps us. It is a serious argument worth serious consideration. The cancellation counterattack is an information operation aimed at changing minds to deter attacks on our side from the left's cancellation corps and to protect the freedom of speech and thought of our own people. We must evaluate our tactics for their effectiveness, not just the feelz we get from punching back (though the morale effect, as discussed below, is crucial).
Challenging our tactics among those with whom we share a foxhole in the culture wars is vital. In the Army, we literally shared foxholes and took each other apart in after-action reviews following training events. If you want to see brutal criticism from inside your own tent, sit through a National Training Center rotation hotwash. It's not fun nor for the faint of heart. You best leave your ego at the door, or it's going to get torn to bits. You rip each other up over tactics, hopefully, learn from it, then go back to literally sharing foxholes. This technique led to incredibly effective brigade and lower-sized units – the military's many problems are in the macro; the companies, battalions and brigades know how to fight and win engagements in large part because they train like this.
I want to hear people make good faith, coherent, and meaningful arguments against my position, not because I like people telling me I am wrong – I don't – but because I want to win. You only win if you are more effective than the enemy. You only get better if you are challenged to improve. So, being mad because people have different ideas about tactics is dumb. Accusing people of being soft when they really just think, in this scenario, that going soft on some targets is a better tactic is self-defeating. You don't have to agree with their arguments, but you don't have to freak out and call them names either.
Now, there are truly soft wusscons who dread getting their hands dirty by being "mean" to minor players or anyone else. They insist "we are better than that," which is presumptuous. I'm not better than that; I want to fight. They are not arguing tactics; they are telling us – without putting it so honestly – that they simply don't have the stomach to do what must be done, and they don't want anyone else to either. Being mean is icky. But not everyone is suited to the infantry; we need clerk-typists too, just don't try to clothe your inability to shove a bayonet deep into our enemies' collective figurative gut as moral superiority when it's really just that you're a sissy.
There is still a lot of that residual softness in Republicanism, too much. I get that it's hard to be hard. It's unpleasant to be unpleasant, and only a psycho takes joy in inflicting pain. But our own little people have suffered and that requires a response. When did Republicans stop believing in peace through strength? But when did Republicans come out against punishment? We want to lock up criminals, to make them feel the consequences of their crimes not just to deter them in the future but to get the retribution, the justice, that human nature demands. Why is there some exception for the people who have taken out jobs, doxed us, harassed us, and even encouraged others to murder us?
It's nothing new. Payback is essential. Your own people need to know that they will be defended and avenged, or they will stop being your people—where are the people of Jeb! and the other softies of the 2000s GOP now? There aren't any. They left us undefended and unavenged, so we left them.
Here's the brutal reality. We must be willing to inflict pain on our enemies, and the refusal to do so ensures your own people are going to suffer pain because the other side is damn sure not worried about feeling bad for hurting us. We have seen our own people ruined and abused by cancel culture, and we need to use our power to stop it by any means necessary – including the means of being mean.
We have power, and we must use it ruthlessly to defend our people and defeat our opponents. That means no passes, granting no grace until grace becomes the norm instead of unilateral disarmament. There are three ways this goes—our submission to their will, their return to the pre-cancellation rules, or war. Option One is out. Option Two is my preference, but until they embrace it, Option Three it is.
We cannot pretend that human nature got repealed somewhere along the way just because some on our side have no stomach to deal the pain. Some pretend to not even understand how human interaction works and accept that you either wield power or get it wielded upon you – I'd recommend you ask a Melian about power but there are no Melians anymore. Some of Team Soft Cell recoiled from that during the Home Depo doofus debate, one child-pundit even labeling talk of power as "cringe." But if this person had been involved in politics for more than five minutes and to a deeper level than seeking mid-tier interweb clout, this person would be aware that politics is only about power.
The facts are that our enemies created New Rules that declared open season on conservatives who made conservative comments in public spaces, putting their livelihoods and – as we saw in Bulter, PA – their lives at risk should they say unapproved things. We opposed these New Rules. We argued against them. And we were ignored. They imposed the New Rules and launched a reign of terror against our people. Well, now we are fighting back. Ruthlessly. Mercilessly. Not because we get off getting some jerk fired from her job operating a cash register but because we know that the only way ever possibly to change the New Rules back is to make the consequences of the enemy – all of the enemy – so unpleasant for our enemies that they rethink their new rules. Will that work? Will they rethink cancel culture? Maybe, but the worst case scenario if we choose to fight every battle and strike every target is that they pay for what they did. We at least owe our own people whose lives they have ruined that piece of payback.
Follow Kurt on Twitter @KurtSchlichter. Get the newest volume in the Kelly Turnbull People’s Republic series of conservative action novels set in America after a notional national divorce, the bestselling Amazon #1 Military Thriller, Overlord! And get his new novel about terrorism in America, The Attack!
Look, you need to keep up the fight by joining Townhall VIP right now. You get access to a bunch of great stuff, not the least of which is my extra Wednesday column, my weekly Stream of Kurtiousness videos every Friday, and the Unredacted podcast every Monday! Plus, some stuff from Larry O’Connor – and a bunch of other stuff.