Oliver-Ash Kleine: So, who are we canceling today?
Katelyn Burns: How about Missouri Senator Josh Hawley?
Oliver-Ash: Oh, he is that guy who is just throwing a temper tantrum because he lost his book deal after the insurrection, right?
Katelyn: He did not lose his book deal. Someone else picked it up. But yes, he is the guy is going on like Fox News and writing in the New York Post about how he is so silenced.
Oliver-Ash: And so if we choose to cancel him today, he is gone forever, right? We have that power to just like stop it.
Katelyn: I think we probably need a few more listeners to make that happen. For some reason, I feel like Mr. Hawley is going to end up being a frequent subject of our show.
Oliver-Ash: Because we do not have the power to cancel anyone unfortunately.
Katelyn: Hi, everyone. I am Katelyn Burns.
Oliver-Ash: And I am Oliver-Ash Kleine.
Katelyn: And you are listening to Cancel Me, Daddy.
Oliver-Ash: The show where we take a closer look at all of the panic around cancel culture with thoughtful analysis and verbal shitposting.
Katelyn: Hell, yeah.
Oliver-Ash: So, Katelyn, we are recording our very first show. How are you feeling?
Katelyn: I am a little nervous. I am not going to lie.
Oliver-Ash: Yes, I am nervous, too. My stomach is doing some things, but I am really excited, too. It is also excitement, You know.
Katelyn: I am like nervous, but also craving a cheeseburger. I do not know.
Oliver-Ash: Maybe we will order cheeseburgers after this. So, you know, as we are recording our first show, one of the things that I am thinking about is that very first conversation we had when we were like, "Oh, we should start a podcast together." You know, we were trying to figure out what the show was going to be about, and as soon as you said cancel culture, I knew that that was absolutely the thing that we were going to do. I am wondering if you could share a little bit about what prompted that.
Katelyn: Yes. I feel like this is a topic that is certainly getting a lot of attention right now within the media and, you know, starting to see like subsex pop-up talking about cancel culture and sort of decrying it and then, asking for Patreon contributions. You see other podcasts that are popping up talking about how this is the end of civilization as we know it, because out-of-control lefties are tamping down all to sent or whatever. I really wanted to have something that looks at this with more nuance, and looks and sees who is being left out of these conversations quite a bit. I feel like it was a really good fit for us.
Oliver-Ash: Yes. I think that one of my biggest frustration with the whole cancel culture thing is all of the people who are complaining about it really loudly, have huge platforms and a good deal of power. They are actually not being canceled and they are actually using it to, you know, raise money, to get more attention. A lot of the people, their profiles have been raised by complaining about being canceled as almost like this badge of honor. Meanwhile, they are actually trying to silence people who are being left out of the conversation because a lot of the people who are saying like, "Oh, this thing that you are doing is problematic. It is harmful. You need to be held accountable," or marginalize people who do not have a voice in this conversation. They are being gas-lit and left out of the conversation. Meanwhile, these folks who are screaming about cancel culture making money off it and kind of engaging in what I would call the cancel culture grift economy.
Katelyn: They are all begging for the Cancel Daddy to cancel them because they know it actually ends up in more dollars in their pockets.
Oliver-Ash: Do you mean they are saying "Cancel Me, Daddy?"
Katelyn: No, why would I say that?
Oliver-Ash: One thing I wanted to say before we get started is that I am already so overwhelmed by the response people are having to the show.
Katelyn: It has been amazing.
Oliver-Ash: We got a lot of love when we launched our trailer. Everyone said looking forward to hearing a journalist with actual credibility discuss cancel culture as opposed to all of the pearl-clutchers trying to cover for someone finally experiencing consequences.
Katelyn: And then, Alex said this is a good call. The entire cancel culture argument on the right is just another grift. It is good to see someone taking time to pull that apart and look at it a bit more closely.
Oliver-Ash: We also saw a lot of people who say they do not like podcast. They hate podcast. They cannot listen to podcasts. You were going to listen to this one because they are excited to hear what we have to say, and that is just like such a ringing endorsement. I think all of the response to just our trailer shows how badly something like this is needed to combat all of the bad faith arguments that were being inundated with from some of the mainstream publications that are lifting it up. I am really excited that we are going to start publishing this show every other week.
Katelyn: We eventually want to make this a weekly show though, right?
Oliver-Ash: Yes, definitely.
Katelyn: In that day, we are raising money through Patreon at patreon.com/cancelmedaddy. You can help us out there. We have a lot of great perks including early access to episodes. We could even read your name live on air as one of our followers so go check that out.
Oliver-Ash: Yes, and we will have more on this later. I just want to say that I am so blown away and thankful for all of the incredible people who have joined before we even launch our first episode. You are all amazing.
Katelyn: It has really been incredible. I just wanted to thank everybody so much from the bottom of my heart.
Oliver-Ash: With that, let us get to the show.
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Oliver-Ash: For our very first segment, we are starting by looking out one of the biggest temper tantrums happening around cancel culture right now. That is, of course, the right wing Republicans freaking out in the aftermath of the insurrection and the effort to impeach Donald Trump. I am so excited to talk about this because Katelyn has actually been doing a lot of really good reporting on this. Katelyn, I think that one of the biggest players in all of this is Senator Josh Hawley. Can you take us through kind of how he plays into all of this?
Katelyn: First of all, I love that our first segment is just like taking down Josh Hawley. Listen. For those who do not know Josh Hawley is a Republican senator from Missouri. He was one of the chief cheerleaders of the January 6th insurrection at the US Capitol. In fact, there was a photo that went viral where he was giving the crowd a fist bump minutes before they stormed the capital. There have been calls for his resignation. He voted against certifying the Electoral College results shortly after the white supremacist mob was cleared out of the Capitol. There has been a lot of happenings with him since then. He is starting to face some consequences for his actions. He actually had a book deal with Simon & Schuster canceled, which he has now gone on for weeks positioning himself as a victim in all of this because he lost this book deal. It has really been kind of funny to watch him sort of slowly melt down - him and his Republican colleagues.
Oliver-Ash: Yes, it has been pretty interesting to watch. I mean, they seems like they are acting like children and just like slamming their fists against the table. One of the things that stood out to me as soon as all of this stuff with Hawley's book fell through was he was threatening to sue and calling it censorship. He is part of the government. This is not an issue of free speech at all.
Katelyn: No, and the really ironic part, too, is like a week or two after his contract with Simon & Schuster was cancelled. It was actually picked up by conservative imprint called Regnery, which, by the way, is distributed by Simon & Schuster. It is pretty hilarious that his "canceled book deal," which was not really canceled and is not really changing that much is sort of this big claimed censorship. Since then, he has gone on. He wrote a terrible op-ed in the New York Post where he was just moaning about how leftists are trying to shut down conservative thought. It is like, "No, we just want you to accept the consequences of your own actions in inciting an insurrection that left people including a US Capitol Police Officer dead." We cannot just move on from this and say, "Oh, our bad. We are back to normal now." No. There has to be consequences, right? This is like the classic leftist critique of the sort of outcry over cancel culture is there is so many people who use claims of cancel culture just to try to get out of consequences. Josh Hawley was not cancelled. He is not censored. He is in the near post. He is on Fox News telling everybody how he is silenced. It is ridiculous because those places have audiences of millions. He can call a press conference anytime he wants on Capitol Hill and get fifty news outlets there. This guy is not censored, but you see this all over the right. It is just ridiculous.
Oliver-Ash: Yes. I mean, I think one of the things that is so ridiculous to me about this claim of being canceled and censored is that if you look at it, Senator Josh Hawley's profile has been raised significantly since all of that, right? He is getting so much more press. His perspective on this is driving a lot of the conversation right now, which is ridiculous because he does not know what he is talking about. My favorite line from this op-ed is "The alliance of leftists and woke capitalist hopes to regulate the innermost thoughts of every American from school age to retirement." Woke capitalist? What are woke capitalist? I am pretty sure that those things, they do not work together.
Katelyn: Yes, and we are talking about a guy again who helped incite an insurrection where people died. But you see this, again, throughout the right wing. If you look at representative Matt Gaetz from Florida, he tweeted last week that impeaching Trump for his role in inciting the insurrection is the "zenith of canceled culture." It is like, "No, we are just trying to let law and order, which they supposedly are all in favor of, play itself out. If people who genuinely did wrong happen to catch consequences from it, too bad. He should have thought about that ahead of time. Be an adult and accept responsibility for your actions. It is especially frustrating with somebody like Matt Gaetz, who last week flew to Wyoming to hold a rally against Liz Cheney who is a fellow representative on the Republican side in the House of Representatives. Cheney actually voted for the articles of impeachment. Gaetz is going around trying to get somebody to primary against her in Wyoming. Effectively, the political equivalent of canceling somebody. Gaetz is out there claiming the whole thing is cancel culture while also trying to cancel a colleague. He is just such a hypocrite. Like I want to punch him in the face--
Oliver-Ash: Wait. Wait. So, you are telling me that because one of his colleagues voted for impeachment, he is trying to get someone to run against her.
Katelyn: Yes, that is exactly what is happening. They are trying to strip her of her leadership position within the house. It is like all of these things that they are complaining about on the left are things that they are doing themselves.
Oliver-Ash: That is a really good point because when you look at the right, there is a lot less ideological diversity than on the left. The Republican party has a history of primarying people who, for instance, acknowledge the existence of climate change. The Republican party is very committed to maintaining ideological purity within their ranks in a way that the democrats tend to not be quite as strong about.
Katelyn: Yes, I would say that is an accurate assessment. I think there is another dynamic here to apply, and that is that conservatives are increasingly finding their cultural views to be in the minority within the United States, right? I actually had an interesting conversation last week with a Harvard Professor named Pippa Norris, who has studied cancel culture within political contexts, not just the United States, but across the world. Something she said really stuck out to me and that is that complaints about cancel culture or the feeling of needing to self-censor your political views is not a left or right dichotomy. I think we look at it that way in the United States because that is the way it has been framed forever, but it is actually a majority-minority issue. She explained it by saying in liberal countries, like the US and Western Europe, its conservatives have been increasingly find themselves with minority social views, and then, as a result, feel a need to self-censor.
This used to be called political correctness, right? We are all familiar with that because you and I grew up with that as a term. If you look at more conservative countries, especially those that are more religious, it is actually those with liberal social views who feel the need to self-censor. I think the takeaway from all of this is just to realize that it is conservatives who are actually getting angry that their social issues are more in the minority now than they used to be. When you add it into the fact that they consider themselves the "real Americans," this sort of white supremacist value system of the white cisgender, heterosexual, nuclear family living in the suburbs is what America is supposed to be. They are increasingly frustrated that they are not in power, right? This is why you have them going out and trying to suppress the vote in all these places so they can win elections. They do not actually have policies that appeal to more than fifty percent of the country. They have to resort to these inflammatory, rhetoric and and electoral tricks to try to win office.
Oliver-Ash: Would you say that these very loud and passion temper tantrums about cancel culture are perhaps the last primal scream of the mediocre white guy trying to hold on to power?
Katelyn: I would, but there also are quite a few mediocre white ladies who are trying to claim the power.
Oliver-Ash: You are not wrong.
Katelyn: We will get to that probably in a future show.
Oliver-Ash: Well, with that, in just a moment, we are going to delve into the firing of New York Times editor Lauren Wolfe after she tweeted about having chills over Biden's Inauguration. Stay tuned.
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Oliver-Ash: Before we get to the rest of our show, there is another podcast that we love that we want to recommend to you. It is called Gender Reveal.
Katelyn: It is a space for trans people of all different backgrounds to share their stories and their work and really explore what gender means to them.
Oliver-Ash: It is a show that is hosted by journalists and gender educator Tuck Woodstock. They are also a good friend of the show and they interview just such incredible guest like Diamond Stylz, Meredith Talusan, Thomas Page McBee and our very own Katelyn was actually on the show not too long ago.
Katelyn: I was. I had a wonderful time. We had a great talk about my career as a journalist, how I got started in journalism, and then, my experience as the first ever openly trans Capitol reporter, and it was great time. I recommend it.
Oliver-Ash: One of my favorite things about the show is you have trans people talking to each other about gender and other things and it is a great resource that gets beyond the gender trans 101 and really has like deep thoughtful conversation. I think it is just such a valuable resource and it is important show and Tuck is amazing and really smart. You should definitely subscribe to Gender Reveal wherever you are listening right now and tune in every Monday to hopefully get a little bit closer to understanding what the heck gender is.
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Katelyn: So, how about we cancel the New York Times next?
Oliver-Ash: Yes, please.
Katelyn: We are going to talk a little bit about the firing of editor Lauren Wolfe. Oliver, I know you have been following this a little bit. Do you want to explain what happened?
Oliver-Ash: Yes. Let us break it down. Basically, Lauren got fired after tweeting "Biden landing at Joint Base Andrews now. I have chills." That is it. That was the whole tweet.
Katelyn: Yes, but it is a little weird what the Times said because their initial statement implied that she had done something wrong in the past. It was really weird because they said we do not comment on internal employee matters, but then they like insinuated that this woman was like bad editor job or messed up once before. I thought that was really weird.
Oliver-Ash: Yes, so we do not know what the New York Times is not telling us, but we do know what Lauren Wolfe is saying because she has been talking to the media about it. Basically, she says she was warned about her Twitter activity once before. She was told that some of her tweets were borderline and an example that she was given was where she talked about conservative men refusing to wear masks as a part of toxic masculinity. She was also told other time staffers had done worse. It is really unclear why she is getting fired when other folks have not for very similar things or things that are even worse.
Katelyn: Some people are saying that Lauren Wolfe has been canceled because of this. What do you make of that?
Oliver-Ash: I think that is complete nonsense. I think it is unfair that she lost her job, but what is happening right now is not a cancel culture thing. I think that this is similar to kind of what we saw with Gamergate with people taking things out of context, harassing people that they did not like what they said and going to their employer trying to get them fired.
Katelyn: One of the things that I saw around this is, of course, there was the infamous Harper's letter about free speech couple of months ago. You saw some of the signers of that letter saying, "Oh, we tried to warn you guys about this. This is of your own making. You kind of deserved this for not listening to us." I was just kind of curious like obviously, what happened here was a right-wing mob got upset over something, an editor that they perceived as not objective. How is this different from James Bennet being let go, who is a former opinion page editor and admitted to several mistakes in the publication of Senator Tom Cotton's piece a couple months ago calling for the military to put down Black Lives Matters protests.
Oliver-Ash: Something that seems really different to me about this is how bad faith all of the conversation criticizing Lauren Wolfe for her tweet is. It is a pretty innocuous tweet. It does not harm anyone. Whereas with Senator Cotton's op-ed, he was calling for state violence against Black Lives Matter protesters which is wildly irresponsible. With the op-ed, what we saw was really dangerous because it legitimizes that state violence. It legitimizes that as an opinion that we should be taking seriously.
Katelyn: Yes, I think in this case, too, Bennet admitted to not reading the op-ed before it went out, which is like an editor's basic job, especially with something produced by a senator. There are specific differences in this case. Bennet was not fired for his political opinions and Lauren Wolfe was. I think to me that is what it boils down to.
Oliver-Ash: One of Wolfe's friends did a Twitter thread about all of this and said that her chills "was because fascism did not win." To me, that seems like one of the most reasonable responses that, I think, is pretty objective. Like white supremacy and fascism, I think it is really fair to say is objectively bad. Are they saying it is not? If we are talking about a political opinions, where did the chills come from? Chills came from democracy persevering. It is so innocuous to me.
Katelyn: Yes, I agree with that. I think it is kind of ridiculous that journalists and editors are made to do this dance of like public neutrality. I think this is partly how we got into the fascism situation in the first place. Journalists became stenographers rather than seekers of truth. It became more about the show of objectivity rather than actual objectivity. In my mind, when I am writing about things, people understand my frame of reference. They understand that I lean to the left, but I am just as hard on Democrats as I am on Republicans. You can be out really partisan as a reporter and still report fairly on what you are reporting on, I think. Would you agree with that?
Oliver-Ash: A hundred percent. I think the other thing you just said is kind of how the media's obsession with objectivity fed into everything that is happening. I think that the media has talked about how social media and the algorithms and disinformation has led to this, but also have not really reckoned with their own role in this about how normalizing and profiling white supremacist and just repeating what Trump said without analysis and thought. We have not really reckoned as a country and as an industry without the media play into what is going on. I think that that is something we need to really look at and think about and hold ourselves accountable for.
Katelyn: I mean just recently, their star COVID reporter Donald McNeil Jr., who has worked with the paper for forty-five years, was reported that he was suspended for using the n-word during a Times student trip to Peru, but he was not fired for doing that. You see this over and over again with the Times where their stars who are usually men are allowed to get away with things.
Oliver-Ash: Yes, and unfortunately, it is the whole industry. This is not a problem exclusive to the New York Times, but I do think that when you are the biggest paper or the paper of record, that means a little extra scrutiny as warranted. One reason that I just find Lauren Wolf's sudden dismissal stunning is everything that is going on at The Daily, which I have been following pretty closely. For those who have not been following along, basically, the New York Times had to give back there Peabody because the podcast Caliphate was based on lies. It was just complete nonsense. The producer for that series is this guy named Andy Mills who works at The Daily. The very next week after they had to give back there Peabody, he hosted a segment on that show, which is one of the biggest podcast in the country.
Now, all of this was mid-December and a bunch of people in the podcast world which I inhabit started speaking out about alleged bullying and sexual harassment from Andy. I say allegedly for legal reasons not because I do not believe those stories. Now, in response to criticism in the podcast world, Mike Barbaro who hosts The Daily. He is the host of the most popular show in the country starts blocking a bunch of people on Twitter who are criticizing either The Daily or Andy. He also privately pressured journalists to dial back their own public criticisms of the times in Caliphate. Now, about a month later, twenty public radio stations condemned Barbaro's behavior. Some even dropped The Daily from there airways. The New York Times is losing money because of the way the host of the top podcast in the country behaved and he is fine. As far as we know, there have been no consequences.
Now, it seems that maybe after a month and a half and a PR nightmare for the New York Times because of Andy Mills alleged behavior and his failure to do good journalism that resulted in having to give back a Peabody that he might no longer be at The Daily. Reports are conflicting. He says he is still employed there, but he is been taken out of the New York Times slack in directory. This is pure speculation, but it looks to me like he is being pushed out. I could be wrong about that. Again, it is speculation, but it looks like maybe he is facing consequences. But even if he is, it is only because a lot of people put pressure on the New York Times. It is just incredible to me how these institutions really support these golden children.
Katelyn: Sexual harassment and like pressuring colleagues to stay silent or to dial back criticism are a far cry from tweeting "I have chills to the end of American fascism," or "I have chills that democracy survived." There is miles between those two things. What are they doing over there? I do not understand it. I love, by the way, that our first podcast beef is with The Daily.
Oliver-Ash: We are just going to cancel the biggest podcast in the country.
Katelyn: All right. It is done. The Cancel Daddy has spoken.
Oliver-Ash: Am I the Cancel Daddy?
Katelyn: Do you want to be the Cancel Daddy?
Oliver-Ash: I am the council Daddy. Yes. Yes. You have given me so much power, Katelyn. I am going to be a drunk with this power. You do not even know you have created a monster.
Katelyn: Oh, no. On that note, I think that is a good place to wrap for today. What do you think?
Oliver-Ash: Yes, that sounds good to me. How are you feeling about our first show?
Katelyn: I think it is a good start. I think we had a good discussion. I am already excited for our next episode.
Oliver-Ash: Yes, I feel really good about this show. I think it was a very good first episode. I think they are just going to get better. Like we said at the start of the show, we are looking to make this a weekly podcast and we are raising money on Patreon.
Katelyn: Even if it is just the cost of a cup of coffee every month, that will make a big difference.
Oliver-Ash: Patreon contributors can join the Cancel Community on Discord. We also have a monthly video chat for some subscribers and lots of other awards.
Katelyn: You can even get a t-shirt, which we are still admittedly developing. Give us a little bit of time, but look at there.
Oliver-Ash: If you cannot support us financially, another way that you can really help out is leaving a nice and short review on Apple podcast. That really makes a difference and also just sharing the show with your friends and on social media.
Katelyn: Oliver, you forgot to tell them where they could go for our Patreon. It is patreon.com/cancelmedaddy.
Oliver-Ash: Thank you for catching that, Katelyn.
Katelyn: Regardless, we are really looking forward to hearing from you. We are so glad you joined us for our first episode.
Oliver-Ash: Today's show was made by me, Oliver-Ash: Kleine, and Katelyn Burns. Daniel Peter Schmidt made our theme song and [inaudible] designed our graphics. We also use music from Paddington Bear. Our show is made possible by the incredible Cancel Cabal supporting our work.
Katelyn: And one last note, we are inducting one member into the great Cancel Hall of Fame today. This honor gives inductees the great power of canceling their enemies. You can get it yourself with a hundred dollar a month contribution to our Patreon. So Megan, thank you so much for your support. We really appreciate it.
Oliver-Ash: Thank you so much Megan. Happy canceling.
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