A thread: "Cancellation" versus "Just normal politics"

A few years back, when people started really getting animated about cancelling cancel culture, people began suggesting that pumping out dirt about a political opponent during a campaign might be like "cancellation." After all, a political campaign consists of digging up past statements and actions of a person to try to get them fired -- or at least not hired -- for a job. In this case, the job of being an elected official.

Point about Trump:

Trump upsets a lot of people because he freewheels policy publicly. He does not, as the old guard did, hash out the policy with advisors behind closed doors, and then present the conclusions to the world ex cathedra. 1/several Instead, he proposes possible policies to the public, before they're settled on and sometimes before they're considered very deeply. 2/several

this is fine, but I'll explain it as someone actually on the right. For fifty years we on the right have been told we cannot punish leftwing rioters, because the First Amendment is so important that we cannot come within miles of *appearing* to punish speech. 1/n

https://twitter.com/SeanTrende/status/1881734438171902187

Now we were always frustrated by this "rule," and we wouldn't have chosen this "rule" if anyone had asked us (and of course no one ever does), but we did accept, grudgingly, that this was the rule: Speech is so important we must tolerate some violent "speech." 2/n

THE TAPPER FILES, Part 1

Any conservative writer can tell you that @JakeTapper is the Beetlejuice of Twitter, except he will appear to angrily denounce you in DMs if you only say his name *one* time. 1/n For that reason I had long stopped mentioning @JakeTapper on Twitter. I instead would refer to @CNN, but he would also appear like Beetlejuice if I just said that, so I would say "CNN," no @ symbol. That also didn't fool Twitter Beetlejuice. 2/n

There is a rift on the right over foreign policy. The hardcore America Firsters tend to speak as if supporting Israel somehow involves American troops fighting Israel's war. There is a shaky peace between the wings, so long as no one proposes actually going to war for Israel. As an Israel supporter, I want to say, this claim that America will fight Israel's wars is delusionary -- everyone accepts that that would blow up the Middle East.