Left-wingers attacked radical leftist intellectual Noam Chomsky on Tuesday after he co-signed a statement in Harper’s criticizing cancel culture — several days after President Donald Trump did the same in his Mount Rushmore speech.
Several “verified” blue-checkmark users on Twitter were outraged that Chomsky, 91, should agree with Trump, albeit indirectly, or that he would push back against left-wing efforts to deny platforms to those who dispute its orthodoxies.
The Harper’s statement, titled “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate,” included Chomsky, J.K. Rowling, and others.
While attacking President Donald Trump as “a real threat to democracy,” the statement warned that “it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought.” The result, they warned, was that the fight for left-wing causes was being undermined.
Many on the left were irritated at Chomsky:
Some, however, pushed back:
In his speech, Trump attacked the left’s “cancel culture”: “One of their political weapons is ‘Cancel Culture’ — driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees. This is the very definition of totalitarianism, and it is completely alien to our culture and our values, and it has absolutely no place in the United States of America.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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