The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: The Left’s Cancel Culture Frankenstein Turns on It After Charlie Kirk's Death  

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

The Left’s preferred method of vengeance for the past few years has been cancel culture, in which it deplatforms, doxes, blacklists, and suppresses speech for being illiberal. But now, after justifying and even celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death, the Left is pretending to be free speech warriors.   Victor Davis Hanson breaks down why the Left can’t handle the backlash after Charlie Kirk’s assassination and why cancel culture is finally turning on its creators on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.” “They have been canceled and they're very, very angry. And they feel that the Charles Kirk death, assassination has opened the gates of censorship. No, it hasn't. It's making a larger point, that when somebody dies, there's a period, traditionally, of grace. They're also very angry because the murder of Iryna Zarutska opened the gates, they feel, of collectivizing, stereotyping black crime in a way that's unfair.  “And they kind of say the Right wants a George Floyd moment. But remember one thing, it's very, very important about this dichotomy, this dialogue back and forth: When George Floyd died under police custody, he was used by the Left to advance a larger agenda, based on a premise. And we were told that George Floyd died violently while in police custody because this was a normal event in the United States, where police systematically killed suspect, unarmed black males. That was not true. That was not true.” 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1    👉If you can’t get enough of Victor Davis Hanson from The Daily Signal, subscribe to his official YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273    👉He’s also the host of “The Victor Davis Hanson Show,” available wherever you prefer to watch or listen. Links to the show and exclusive content are available on his website: https://victorhanson.com  (0:00) Introduction to Cancel Culture (1:15) Elon Musk and Free Speech (1:55) Media Reactions and Censorship (2:50) Race and Media Personalities (4:44) The George Floyd Comparison (7:22) Final Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk, business. We've had a culture of about five years of what I would call cancel culture, de-platforming, doxing, blacklisting, using all sorts of methods to suppress free speech. Cancel culture said that if you voice something that was considered illiberal, you were going to lose your job. But what's happened now is the death of Charlie Kirk has kind of turned the tables. People who are using that death to comment in criticism him before he's even buried, are now facing, not censorship, but certain platforms, media platforms especially, are saying, we just don't want you be here anymore. And they feel that the Charles Kirk death assassination

has opened the gates of censorship. No, it hasn't. Oh, this is Victor Davis Hansen for the Daily Signal. We've had a culture of about five years of what I would call cancel culture, deplatforming, doxing, using all blacklisting, using all sorts of methods to suppress free speech. That was one of the reasons why Elon Musk paid such an exorbitant sum for the old Twitter to allow free speech. And cancel culture said that if you voice something that was considered illiberal, you were going to lose your job.

that through Me Too with a number of Hollywood luminaries and professors were fired because they had said or done something considered sexist or ill-advised. We saw that on matters of race after George Floyd. But what's happened now is the death of Charlie Kirk has kind of turned the tables. People who are using that death to comment in criticism him before he's even buried are now facing, not censorship, but certain platforms, media platforms especially, are saying, we just don't want you to be here anymore. Not that we don't like you. We're not trying to censor you. We're just giving you the Joy Reid treatment. Joy Reid, remember, was the cable media commentator who night after night could not finish a sentence without talking about white people as her ratings

went down and down and she was finally let go. It wasn't that people said that they were trying to silence her. They just said, you can go do your own podcast. In fact, she did her own podcast. I've watched one of them, and you can see why she was indeed fired. All she can talk about are white people, and people don't want to hear that. Recently, Karen Atia, a columnist for the Washington Post, is very furious because in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, she talked about him being a racist white man, white man. And they felt, you know, Jeff Bezos is the owner. They just felt, you know, we've had enough of that. We saw a lot of that with Don L. L.A.M. We see that with Al Sharpton. People are just tired of race, race, race, race, race, race. Charlie Kirk had said something.

He didn't talk about black woman pejority of the collective. He said that Conjee Brown, the A Justice and Joy Reid in particular, a couple of other women, I think Michelle Obama, were not qualified according to meritocratic standards. I don't know if that's or not, but he said that DEI considerations had been used for their elevation or prominence in a way. I suppose he would say, why is Melania Trump not on vogue, but Michelle Obama was? I would say, I don't know if it has anything to do with race or not, but it might have just as much to do with left-wing politics.

But nevertheless, they have been canceled and they're very, very angry. They feel that the Charles Kirk death assassination has opened the gates of censorship. No, it hasn't. It's making a larger point that when somebody dies, there's a period traditionally of grace. They're also very angry because the murder of Arenia Zarutka opened the gates they feel of collectivizing. stereotyping black crime in a way that's unfair. And they kind of say this, the right wants a George Floyd movement. But remember one thing, it's very, very important about this dichotomy, this dialogue back

and forth. When George Floyd died under police custody, he was used by the left to advance a larger agenda based on a premise. and we were told that George Floyd died violently while in police custody because this was a normal event in the United States where police systematically killed suspect unarmed black males. That was not true. That was not true. The Washington Post found that of all the people who come in contact with the police, that's a very important qualifier,

Black suspects who are unarmed are killed by police no more than their percentage in the demographic. Roland Fryer pointed that out too at his expense because, of course, he was criticized for doing. He was the Harvard economist who did a study on it. That's very different than a Rania Zerutka, because conservatives like the late Charlie Cook and others were making a point that that represents a phenomenon that, people are not talking about. Is it true or not? In the case of George Floyd, it prompted a conversation that the left used when they knew the data was wrong. They knew that police were not shooting inordinately black on-armed suspects, but they said they were and the rest is history, defund the police, cashless bail, etc. But in this case, it is true that DeC Carlos Brown

and African-American males, between the ages of 15 to 40, compose a demographic of about 3% of the general population, and yet they account for about half of all violent crimes. And rare interracial crimes, such as we saw on the light rail in North Carolina, they are six to ten times, depending on the nature of the violent crime, more likely to attack a white victim than a white victim. victimizer is a black victim. That's just a fact. And that horrific death on the light rail brought attention to that reality in a way that conservatives wanted to point out that this was a national

crisis. But on the other hand, when liberals and leftists tried to say that George Floyd needed our attention to a national crisis, there was no empirical information, there was no data, there was no research that supported that position. And that was the difference. And so I think it's very important, a final note, that when people want to comment on the death of Charlie Kirk, there's two issues involved. All of us, traditionally in Judeo-Christian society,

feel that there's a grace period, that we do not attack people who have recently been dead. Don't speak ill of the dead. It's a famous Latin phrase. Second, if you are going to speak ill of the dead and violate that canon, then you have to be accurate and not just you have to point out that this represents something that is supported by evidence. And in the case of George Floyd, there was no evidence for police overrepresentation of black suspects as victims. In the case of the Ukrainian immigrant, there was a lot of evidence that deep.

Carlos Brown was not unusual, that he represented a particular demographic that inordinately was responsible for crime, and in rare cases of interracial crime was inordinately represented as the victimizer class. When people pointed that out, as Charlie Kirk did, he was not wrong for doing that, and it was wrong in the wake of his death to criticize him as a white man, and people lost her job accordingly. Thank you very much. Davis Hansen for the Daily Signal. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content like this.

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