The left has been on an absolute rampage to shut down anyone who disagrees with them lately, and the latest example of this is NBC Late Night host Seth Meyers, who attacked Republicans for “cancel culture” as they pass various education laws and kick Rep. Ilhan Omar off the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Meyers started with education policy, claiming that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has built his entire agenda around “culture war nonsense”. In reality, what DeSantis is doing is pushing for more conservative education standards and even going so far as to remove some books from school libraries. Meyers compared this to “cancel culture” and claimed that teachers, librarians, and school districts had no idea what was allowed and what wasn’t. What Meyers failed to mention, however, is that books are only being removed temporarily, and they will be returned when the standards are met.
Meyers then shifted focus to Rep. Ilhan Omar, who was removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee due to her controversial views. Meyers attempted to paint this as an example of “cancel culture”, but he failed to mention that this was a decision made by her own party. Democrats had previously voted to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committees, and they applied the same standard to Omar.
What Meyers and the left fail to realize is that when it comes to education standards and committee assignments, there needs to be consequences for norm-shattering behavior. It’s not “cancel culture” when Republicans are merely enforcing the same standards that Democrats have already set.
At the end of the day, the left is the one pushing for censorship. They’re the ones who are trying to shut down any opposing points of view. This is not only a war on education but a war on free speech and it needs to stop!
Transcript
SETH MEYERS: Trump and DeSantis, they’re just competing to see who can win the right-wing culture wars. That’s why DeSantis has built his entire agenda around culture war nonsense. In fact, this week a viral video found at least one school library in Florida that was basically empty because of DeSantis’s dumb rules against supposedly woke subject matter in schools
FEMALE REPORTER: It’s a video that’s been viewed more than 5 million times. Empty library shelves at Mandarin Middle School, taken by a substitute teacher who says he’s at a loss for words as the school reviews the content of its books following guidelines from the state. Schools are now required to review their libraries and teachers’ classroom book collections to make sure that they don’t violate certain subject matter outlined by the state of Florida.
MEYERS: I’ve never heard of a library that was simply out of books. That sounds like an excuse your kids would use if you sent them to the library to do their homework, and they skipped it to smoke weed at a strip mall and when you confronted them, they’d probably just stand like Ron DeSantis “Kevin, where are all your books? “Oh, they were, uh, out.” “The library, the library was all out of books? “Yeah.” “Okay. I’m going to take off.”
And I do hope — I do hope every pundit who claim the left is responsible for cancel culture is losing their minds at all the books coming off school shelves. Because this isn’t theoretical, it’s real. Teachers, librarians, school districts, they say they have no idea what’s allowed and what’s not under DeSantis’ censorship laws.
…
MEYERS: So that’s who the GOP thinks should be able to serve on committees.
Meanwhile, today they voted to kick Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a refugee and one of the only two Muslim women in the House, off the Foreign Affairs Committee for the simple reason that they don’t like her or her point of view.
And by the way, that’s not just me saying that. Even Matt Gaetz, one of the Trumpiest members of GOP, a guy who tried to overturn the 2020 election and lied about the January 6th insurrection admitted as much this week.
MATT GAETZ: The reason I think a lot of Republicans want to kick Ilhan Omar offer the Foreign Affairs Committees is because they don’t like what she has to say.
MEYERS: You know how [bleep]ed up something has to be for me to agree with Matt Gaetz? The only other thing we see eye to eye on are the benefits of large foreheads. We see eye to eye, forehead to forehead.
Even after admitting what was really going on here, Gaetz still voted with his fellow Republicans today to remove Omar, he didn’t even have the courage to vote no on the resolution even though he apparently had the courage to wear this suit. I mean look at that. It looks like a bad guy from a futuristic video game called Disco Crime 3,000.
Republicans are censoring books in schools, removing people from committees whose opinions they don’t like, and yet they’re the ones whining about cancel culture. The right is fully in favor of censorship when it suits them. There’s only one day a year when Republicans can say they’re defenders of free speech, and that’s –
DONALD TRUMP: April Fool’s Day.
Erica Carlin is an independent journalist, opinion writer and contributor to several news and opinion sources. She is based in Georgia.