Victor Davis Hanson: The Left’s Cancel Culture Frankenstein Turns on It After Charlie Kirk's Death

The Daily Signal

News, Government, Politics, Daily News

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

The Left’s preferred method of vengeance for the past few years has been cancel culture, in which it deplatforms, doxes, blacklists, and suppresses speech for being illiberal. But now, after justifying and even celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death, the Left is pretending to be free speech warriors. Victor Davis Hanson breaks down why the Left can’t handle the backlash after Charlie Kirk’s assassination and why cancel culture is finally turning on its creators on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.” “They have been canceled and they're very, very angry. And they feel that the Charles Kirk death, assassination has opened the gates of censorship. No, it hasn't. It's making a larger point, that when somebody dies, there's a period, traditionally, of grace. They're also very angry because the murder of Iryna Zarutska opened the gates, they feel, of collectivizing, stereotyping black crime in a way that's unfair. “And they kind of say the Right wants a George Floyd moment. But remember one thing, it's very, very important about this dichotomy, this dialogue back and forth: When George Floyd died under police custody, he was used by the Left to advance a larger agenda, based on a premise. And we were told that George Floyd died violently while in police custody because this was a normal event in the United States, where police systematically killed suspect, unarmed black males. That was not true. That was not true.” 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1 👉If you can’t get enough of Victor Davis Hanson from The Daily Signal, subscribe to his official YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273 👉He’s also the host of “The Victor Davis Hanson Show,” available wherever you prefer to watch or listen. Links to the show and exclusive content are available on his website: https://victorhanson.com (0:00) Introduction to Cancel Culture (1:15) Elon Musk and Free Speech (1:55) Media Reactions and Censorship (2:50) Race and Media Personalities (4:44) The George Floyd Comparison (7:22) Final Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:30.7	We've had a culture of about five years of what I would call cancel culture,
0:36.0	deplatforming, doxing, blacklisting, using all sorts of methods to suppress free speech.
0:42.3	Cancel culture said that if you voice something that was considered illiberal, you were going to lose your job.
0:49.3	But what's happened now is the death of Charlie Kirk has kind of turned the tables.
0:55.5	People who are using that death to comment in criticism him before he's even buried are now
1:00.9	facing not censorship, but certain platforms, media platforms especially, are saying, we just
1:07.2	don't want you be here anymore.
1:09.5	And they feel that the Charles Kirk death assassination has opened the gates of censorship.
1:16.4	No, it hasn't.
1:31.9	Oh, this is Victor Davis-Hansson for The Daily Signal.
1:37.5	We've had a culture of about five years of what I would call cancel culture,
1:47.0	deplatforming, doxing, using all blacklisting, using all sorts of methods to suppress free speech. That was one of the reasons why Elon Musk paid such an exorbitant sum for the old Twitter to allow free speech.
1:55.0	And council culture said that if you voice something that was considered illiberal, you were
2:03.6	going to lose your job. We saw that through Me Too with a number of Hollywood luminaries
	...

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