Culture movement going so far that now even less proclaimed, liberal professor one of the ones in Seattle questioning if cancel culture, is killing free speech here to kick off week. Long series, Ben Domenech good to be with you Ainsley, thanks for coming on the Seattle Times published an article. The headline is our cancel culture, killing free speech, getting the attention of a liberal author. You know, J Dot, K, Rowling and some other liberal individuals have spoken out against cancel culture. How do you feel about it? Well, I think one of the things that we need to understand and that your viewers should understand in this week long series that you are having is that cancel culture should be understood properly, not as just a trend thats happening online or something that people are ungeajed in in a casual manner, its much more akin to a religion. It has sins, it has commandments, it has trials by fire.

It has burning at the stake. What it doesnt have is forgiveness or grace any kind of human emotion. That would understand that people can make mistakes or say things you disagree with, and that doesnt mean that you need to hate and destroy them. You mentioned the fact that this was written in a Seattle paper by a University of Washington, professor, I just interviewed on the Federalist radio hour. Our radio show Katie her Zog, who is a writer in Seattle who herself was canceled after a focus. Basically, she wrote a feature piece that paid attention to people who had transitioned and then regretted it for that her name was smeared all over the place. There was graffiti and signs put up in Seattle, calling her all manner of terrible things just for reporting something, a trend that was happening in the country and what we are seeing right now is cancel culture, drifting out of the media environment and into the realm, where normal people are being affected by it. Small business owners and the like

people who dont putt up the right sticker or express the right emotion, are canceled in the sense of the group of people banding together and deciding together online that they are going to destroy someone who they dont like Ainsley. What do you expect out of this election? A lot of people are even afraid that they will be canceled if they admit that theyre voting for one candidate over another, depending on who they are around at the party or on the street or working out at the gym with- I guess cant- do that anymore. Emily at the Cato Institute has done significant research on this. U Gov polling shows. The fact is: there is a vast majority of people who are worried about expressing their beliefs, particularly people who are conservative or republican, because they fear for their careers. They fear for what would happen if they said who they were voting for or who they were support its. I expect that trend to only continue and grow. I think we are in a period of

moral panic where people are focused in different directions. They are looking for someone to hate someone to blame. They are acting out frustration in current moment in ways that are frankly, unamerican and opposed to the idea of free speech and free thought ains. So where do we go from here? How does it this all end? I think where we go from here. We need peep to stand up and enough people to reject the mob, its amazing. What power comes from show thawing are not going to just bend the knee to the demands of these woke cancel culture, people who feel like they have enormous power in this current moment, to marshal the forces online and the corporate power and authority to try to achieve their ends. I think what takes that power back is standing up to them and having enough people around you who will stand up to them and say we are going to buy your product. Even if people say that you are someone who should be canceled, we are going to defy the mob in every little way that we can Ainsley brave people to reject the mob.

A lot of people- I have talked to say, im sure you have too Ben in our line of work- are too scared to stand up to their bosses or too scared to stand up to some of their friends. Fear of being fired, fear of their company going under. We will see how this all plays out for our country.