Commentary
America has had it, and the cracks in the veneer are showing. The expression of our outrage is heard in the chants of “
Let’s Go Brandon!” at public events, seen among parents pushing back on radical educational agendas that insert
trans ideology into curriculum in places such as the Loudoun County school district in Virginia, where a trans-identified male student
sexually assaulted two young girls, and most recently, is explicit in the
defense of Dave Chappelle by comedian and podcast host Joe Rogan of Chappelle’s latest Netflix special, “The Closer” after
transactivists joined Netflix employees demanding that Netflix pull his comedy special.
What do “Let’s go Brandon!” and Dave Chappelle have in common? The catchphrase and the comedian have become targets by radical activists who seek to silence opposition, demonize detractors, and sideline anyone who threatens their radical agendas. People are done being pushed around and bullied into sitting down and shutting up.
As Gary Powell says in my latest film, “
Trans Mission: What’s the Rush to Reassign Gender?”: “One thing that is particularly striking is that as soon as anybody expresses any kind of mild criticism of extreme gender ideology or any type of considered criticism or raises any doubts, they are denigrated as transphobes and as haters.”
That’s what is happening today. Parents are being labeled as
domestic terrorists and Chappelle is being labeled as a
transphobe and charged with
hate speech. Fortunately, freedom of speech is a two-way street, and Main Street has had enough.
Signs of hope? I see plenty. Rogan immediately
threw his support to Chappelle, saying, “He’s not a homophobic or transphobic person. He makes fun of himself. Look, it’s fun. It’s just making jokes. That doesn’t mean hate.”
Other high-profile celebrities have voiced their support too. Piers Morgan expressed
how refreshing it was that Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos didn’t cave to the activists request to cancel “The Closer” and even trans-female-identified
Caitlyn Jenner said on Twitter, “Dave Chappelle is 100 percent right.”
“This isn’t about the LGBTQ movement,” Jenner said. “It’s about ‘woke’ cancel culture run amok, trying to silence free speech. We must never yield or bow to those who wish to stop us from speaking our minds.”
Not only are people with influence coming to the defense of free speech, biological reality, and even comedy, but the public is also weighing in with their support and their wallets. Most recently, Chappelle, joined by his pal Rogan, played to a
sold-out audience in New Orleans, telling the audience, “In the middle of me being canceled, we broke the attendance record.”
Jennifer Bilek said it best, writing, “Chappelle has given everyone permission to say the unsayable, and they are saying it, and they are laughing. They are laughing because this agenda is comedy gold, and no one has been tapping it, for fear of the very ridicule some are slinging at Chappelle. This time it isn’t sticking, and Chappelle has doubled down. He is not only too big to cancel, he understands the subtext and has called it out.”
As Chappelle says in “The Closer,” “All this talk about how people feel inside. Since when has America given [expletive] about how any of us feel inside? And I cannot shake the suspicion that the only reason everybody is talking about transgenders is because white men want to do it. ... No one asked you how you felt. Come on everybody, we have strawberries to pick. It reeks of white privilege. You never asked yourself why it is easier for Bruce Jenner to change his gender than it was for Cassius Clay to change his [expletive] name?”
But people aren’t having it. Let’s Go Brandon! Let’s Go Joe! And Let’s Go Dave!
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
