After spending a segment on "The Five" debunking the "fine people" hoax perpetrated by Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in his acceptance speech at the convention last week, some nobody on Twitter (Tim Miller, who works for Bulwark, which I believe is a knitting circle for failed consultants), claimed that I had a "racist mentor."
So in one tweet, he was able to falsely incriminate me as part of a racist cabal, while smearing any number of people I've worked with (I've had a few great mentors in my life, luckily – none of them racist).
Now, at this point, you (or I) can go two ways. We can ignore a troll, and assume such accusations will fade. Which can happen. But in this era, you can't rely on that anymore.
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When someone calls you racist, you need to fight back. So, I did. I demanded he retract the slander. (You can find my tweets here.)
When I confronted the smear merchant, he desperately and lamely tried to defend himself, without assuming culpability.
When a friend or even a foe, comes under fire – it's up to all of us to step up and defend each other.
I wouldn't have it. I kept the pressure on and I enlisted others to help me. I asked that my friends and fans "share the risk."
Because that's the only way to defeat cancel culture.
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As the cowardly writer started to experience the overwhelming wrath of decent-minded people calling him out, he deleted the inflammatory attack – but not without claiming he did so, only because it became a hassle.
Which is the point. To get cowards like him to stop wielding loaded terms and inflammatory smears that incite violence, you must make it a hassle. That is the point.
It's applying the logic of MAD, or mutually assured destruction, to the clowns behind cancel culture.
The only reason the troll came after me in the first place, is because there was no hassle involved – in fact, there's a low barrier to entry in the cancellation Olympics. He thought he could call me racist, and get away with it – and if I ignored it, he would have been right.
Instead, I came with guns blazing – thereby raising the stakes for his smears – so that he realized that, yes, it should truly become a hassle once you falsely accuse someone of racism!
Duh! MAD worked!
There has never been a more important time to share the risk than right now. When a friend or even a foe, comes under fire – it's up to all of us to step up and defend each other.
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In short, we all must share the risk, so the Bulwark ghouls and others like them learn quickly that they're about to make a huge investment when they wrongly smear people.
Making them pay (literally or metaphorically) is the only way to teach them a lesson.
THAT is the solution to cancel culture.
Fact is, those who accuse you of non-criminal acts in public, do so to ruin you in the public square. And they do this to scare you into compliance – painting targets on your back, and the backs of your family.
Without a challenge, they will continue to harass, smear and cancel you – as they not-so-subtly encourage violence to head in your direction.
If we do not join together and turn our collective power toward the smear gremlins (again, sharing that risk), the gremlins win.
When someone you know, or even don't know, is falsely smeared, you must defend them.
Raising the possibility of swift and brutal punishment in the public square will likely cause all canceling cowards (who initiate this fight) to scamper away (like the Bulwark one did with me).
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It's a way to silence the silencer – to instill fear in those who wish to instill fear in you.
If you don't understand this yet, trust me, one day soon, you will.
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