A dozen or so years ago, the magazine rack at your grocery store was your cheat code for popular culture: The covers revealed EXACTLY where we were as a country.
After all, magazine editors chose their covers to maximize sales. Which meant that the cover photos (and cover stories) were kind of like mini billboards, advertising whatever content was most meaningful to their target audience.
For marketers and/or propagandists, it provided invaluable insight.
But no longer.
Today, paper-and-ink magazines are deader than the dodo. They’re the equivalent of vinyl records: Some people still swear by ‘em, but they’re no longer mainstream.
Instead, we’ve gotta look at digital headlines.
Headlines are the new magazine covers. Between the clickbait model, subscription teases, and journalists’ salaries being directly tied to article views, content is secondary; the headline title is king.
Magazine covers in 1995 — and article headlines in 2025 — now share the same purpose: They’re advertisements, crafted and designed to attract the attention of a very specific target audience.
So let’s take a stroll down Liberal Lane and see what the left is thinking:
Daily Beast: ‘Nazi Karens’ Go Full Cancel Culture on Charlie Kirk Critics
Newsweek: Is the Right Embracing ‘Cancel Culture’ After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination?
Axios: Republicans embrace speech limits after Charlie Kirk
NPR: Sen. Chris Murphy discusses the canceling of critics of Charlie Kirk and free speech
Dan Pfeiffer (Pod Save America): Trump’s MAGA McCarthyism
Wired: Cancel Culture Comes for Artists Who Posted About Charlie Kirk’s Death
The American Prospect: Meet the New Conservative Cancel Culture, This Time With Government Informers
Bulwark: Right-Wing Cancel Culture Explodes After Kirk Assassination
Rolling Stone: People Are Losing Their Jobs for Criticizing Slain ‘Free Speech’ Advocate Charlie Kirk
In 2023, Rolling Stone Magazine actually published the story, “Why Cancel Culture Is Good for Democracy.” Credit to Bonchie at RedState for this glorious X post:
This you? https://t.co/8J7P9J1Ss6 pic.twitter.com/tdTmmEGQTk
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) September 13, 2025
And they’re not the only ones, of course. In 2023, The Nation ran the story, “Like It or Not, Cancel Culture Is Free Speech.” Today on their homepage: “Alleged Free Speech Champions Are Campaigning Against Speech They Don’t Like.”
Some of these editorial switcharoos were so sudden, they literally came out of… left field.
But before we dismantle the left’s idiocy, I’d like to offer liberals some friendly PR advice: Crying about Cancel Culture after you spent most of the last decade canceling, deplatforming, and censoring the political speech of your “enemies” is gonna come across as tone-deaf, hypocritical, and self-serving.
Sorry guys, but it’s the truth: 2023 really wasn’t that long ago!
We still remember when mainstream Republicans, run-of-the-mill conservatives, and right-leaning media outlets — including President Donald Trump, Sen. Rand Paul, Dan Bongino, Jordan Peterson, Steve Bannon, James O’Keefe, James Woods, the Babylon Bee, PragerU, and countless others — were all banned, suspended, censored, and/or demonetized from social media sites.
Furthermore, we also remember when Gina Carano was fired from Disney for expressing one set of political opinions, while her liberal Disney coworkers — including Mark Hamill and Pedro Pascal — have freely opined about the “genocide” in Gaza, called J.K. Rowling a “heinous loser,” attacked conservatives with impunity, and even mocked Trump after the Butler assassination attempt.
Honestly? The radical left’s smartest PR strategy would be to drop the Cancel Culture B.S., disavow deplatforming, and wrap themselves in Voltaire: “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
There is honor to that sentiment. It’s the hallmark of a truly free society.
Alas for the left, it’s also a bipartisan, universal standard. It doesn’t work if you only apply it to one side, because then it’s no longer Free Speech.
Instead, it’s tyranny.
And it speaks to the true difference between leftwing Cancel Culture and today’s conservative backlash against the monsters and madmen who celebrated in the streets when Charlie Kirk was murdered: The intent of the former was to stifle Free Speech; the intent of the latter is to preserve it.
The American Experiment requires two things of us:
- The free and open discussion of ideas — including ideas that we don’t like.
- Americans having the freedom to express their political opinions without eating a bullet.
Which is why it’s so critically important to hold those rejoicing in Charlie Kirk’s demise accountable: If this becomes our “new normal,” then Free Speech in America is dead.
Related: Charlie Kirk, George Floyd, and EVERYTHING Different About the Left and the Right
Free Speech cannot exist in an environment where people are afraid to speak. Thus, the assassination of Charlie Kirk is the greatest threat to the First Amendment of our lifetime.
Nobody on the right is trying to “cancel” someone for their political beliefs. If you think Charlie Kirk was 100% wrong about abortion, trans rights, religion, foreign policy, taxation, Israel, gun control, or absolutely anything else, you have carte blanche to voice your objections.
Go ahead! No one’s censoring you!
I might vehemently disagree with your opinions, but this is still the United States of America — and since I’m a conservative who values Free Speech, you better believe “I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
Even if what you’re saying is frickin’ stupid.
But if you’re posting on social media that Charlie Kirk deserved to be murdered and/or insinuating that your other “political enemies” better watch out — lest they suffer a similar fate — then you are an existential threat to democracy and a fascist. Because that’s NOT Free Speech.
That’s you weaponizing your speech to silence Americans via the implied threat of violence.
And yeah, you ought to be held accountable, because that’s the sentiment that “canceled” Charlie Kirk’s life.
So, no, this isn’t Cancel Culture. This is the exact opposite.
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