The new ‘woke’ right

Jimmy Kimmel is just the latest victim of conservative cancel culture, aping an oft-maligned tactic of ‘progressive scolds’

- MATT K. LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

GOVERNMENT officials are targeting companies that resist printing pro-Charlie Kirk shirts.

IN THE DAYS SINCE Charlie Kirk’s killing, conservatives have embraced a phenomenon they previously called toxic: cancel culture.

The impulse to cancel some voices this past week is understandable: Celebrating murder is cruel. It’s gross. It’s wrong. But the irony is impossible to miss: Conservatives, who long treated cancel culture as an affront to the 1st Amendment spirit of open discourse, are now calling for people to lose their jobs and their livelihoods, all because of something stupid they said on the internet.

This is the same issue that drove numerous stand-up comedians, young men, podcasters and Silicon Valley tech bros into the arms of Donald Trump in 2024. But now, in an amazing turn of events, conservatives are now aping the progressive scolds and speech cops, only with red hats.

Actually, their version is worse. The left’s “accountability culture” mob might have been overbearing, but their agenda was (with a few notable exceptions) largely driven by hall monitors. Today’s “woke right” is executing things in amore overt, efficient and official manner — which for the record means it can violate not just the spirit of the Ist Amendment but the actual, you know ... Ist Amendment.

As a case in point, JD Vance, the vice president of the United States of America, recently told Kirk’s radio audience: “When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out. And hell, call their employer.”