Woke 1.0 may be over, but cancel culture never goes away. Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen Michigan credit union CEOs lose job after posting a photo of a family wearing an AI-generated “American Lakes” sweatshirt. We saw the Portland Trail Blazers hire 29-year-old Braden Bell as their new play-by-play broadcaster, and fire him Hours later, “offensive” tweets he wrote as a teenager resurfaced.
Then there’s Kelly Carnes, executive director of the Baltimore Rock Opera Society. fired After receiving backlash for wearing cornrows at Burning Man. Meanwhile, a Pittsburgh LGBTQ bar canceled its next event after a drag performer was accused of wearing blackface. Pubs are treated so badly death threats The venue said it was no longer safe to proceed.
These cases are different and I personally do not agree with every action or statement involved. But that’s exactly the point: In a free society, people will say things that we find offensive, ignorant, and even morally objectionable. We don’t have to agree with them. The danger begins when disagreements result in people being punished, costing their careers, livelihoods, reputations, or even their lives.
Cancel culture reflects the belief that those who step outside an approved set of ideas should be punished into conformity. Once this becomes the norm, the same dynamics shift more easily from social pressure to institutions and the halls of government.
Fertile ground for this kind of censorship is already visible on both sides of American politics. The socialist left and the political right may believe very different things, but the underlying instincts look very similar.
Among the socialist left, the meaning of “oppression” has grown far beyond its traditional focus on class exploitation. Over time, socialist movements have increasingly applied this framework to race and colonialism, gender and sexuality, housing, health care, and now even cultural expectations around body size, health, and fitness. As the scope of “oppression” expands, so does the range of ideas and behaviors that can be labeled harmful. Once disagreement is seen as hurtful, suppressing it becomes easier to justify.
On the right, we see the same temptation in different forms. The Trump administration has repeatedly clashed with members of the media it deems dishonest or unfair, including by restricting how news organizations describe events or use terminology. The logic is familiar: If I believe what you say is false or harmful, why should I allow you the same access or platform? Once governments start deciding which journalists, perspectives, or accounts are worthy of access based on whether those in charge agree with them, disagreements are no longer just open to criticism; It is being responded to by state power.
This is not to say that the United States has reached authoritarian censorship, but that both sides have demonstrated the same dangerous instinct: to amplify what is deemed intolerable while becoming more willing to use power to fight it. The question then becomes who will enforce it, and how far they are willing to go.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in “German Ideology “The ideas of the ruling class have been the ruling ideas in every age” meaning that those who control the major institutions of society tend to shape What ideas dominate public life?. Marxist-Leninist governments go further: the ruling political class not only affects ideas; It uses the state to enforce them. In the Soviet Union, the Communist Party controlled the media, publishing, libraries, and arts institutions, and those who challenged the official line could face censorship, imprisonment, exile, or worse. This is the warning of history: the real danger begins when those in power are no longer content to defend their views, but gain the power to punish those who reject their views.
This is why personal freedom is most important when someone says something we despise. Free speech means little if we only protect ideas we already agree with. A free society needs to have the maturity to look at the ideas we hate and say, “I completely disagree with you – but you still have the right to say so.”
So here’s my complicated prescription for how to overcome aggressive thoughts in 2026: Grow and become an adult. Know what you believe in, defend it, challenge bad ideas, and when necessary, condemn truly harmful behavior. But maturity also means refusing to let other people’s words serve as an excuse to abandon your own principles.
This is the great irony of cancel culture. It often claims the moral high ground but uses methods that contradict the values it claims to defend. You cannot claim to be against hatred and respond with hatred at the same time. You cannot fight oppression by forcing people to comply. You cannot preach peace and threaten the lives of others. If our response requires us to become the very thing we claim to be against, then we have not overcome the problem; we have become part of it.
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Holly Jean Soto is a freelance and economic communicator dedicated to making complex economic, social, and political ideas accessible to everyday audiences. She graduated from George Mason University with a BA in Economics and is a contributor to Young Voices.
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