> The concept of civility and politeness once existed, but unfortunately has been almost entirely thrown away. This is easy to see if you look up old debates on YouTube; it was normal and expected for people of diametrically-opposite worldviews to engage and debate with each other in a polite, mostly-calm manner. Compare that to the shouting-match of today’s media landscape and you’ll see what we’ve lost.
Nobody's cancelling people over political disagreements; they're cancelling people for dehumanizing groups of people, regardless of the tone of voice.
People may have had orderly disagreements more often back in the 50s, sure (although the violence against Black as well as Native Americans in the 50s is casually and commonly forgotten - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_racial_violence_in_the_Un...). The difference is that in the 50s, people weren't fired for casually employing the n- word against Black people. This is the difference between today v. the past. What you describe still feels like a regression.
I said cancel culture, not people who have lost their jobs. There are plenty of examples of people who otherwise would have lost their jobs had they not already been wealthy, so many that it is so obvious that a topic like this can be posted to HN without any prior explanation. Goya Foods is a recent example and the list goes on. They don’t seem to have done anything other than show support for Trump.
I despise Trump, didn’t vote for him, and think he has done significant damage to the office of the presidency and the country as a whole, but clearly expressing any sort of support for him will get you boycotted (I.e. canceled.) which falls under ‘unacceptable political opinions’ in my book.
Otherwise, I’m really not sure what your definition of ‘dehumanizing’ is. Outright racism and hatred is condemned by nearly everyone.
Realistically, boycotts seems to be the only political tool you have in the US, with all major candidates could be considered varying degrees of authoritarian and sometime libertarian right[0], with no big unions like Germany. If you're not on the "right" side, this moight be your only way of speaking for yourself. Boycott is a non-violent way of saying "stop this", so if you can afford to, you should absolutely do it. Even for petty things.
> but clearly expressing any sort of support for him will get you boycotted (I.e. canceled.) which falls under ‘unacceptable political opinions’ in my book.
They used to call this “voting with your wallet” when I was a kid. I don’t really see what the problem is here. If I don’t like the ethics of a company, I’m free to buy beans from a company whose ethics I do like. This seems to be a critical component of capitalism. What are we supposed to do, force people to buy beans for Goya?
The boycott seems to be stemming from Trump's blatant use of bigotry against the Latinx community, so Goya is being blackballed by the Latinx community for endorsing racism.
The difference is that in the 50s, black people weren't only cancelled by being fired, or cancelled via perjury, they were also cancelled via extrajudicial execution. (compare Emmett Till)
Nobody's cancelling people over political disagreements; they're cancelling people for dehumanizing groups of people, regardless of the tone of voice.
People may have had orderly disagreements more often back in the 50s, sure (although the violence against Black as well as Native Americans in the 50s is casually and commonly forgotten - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_racial_violence_in_the_Un...). The difference is that in the 50s, people weren't fired for casually employing the n- word against Black people. This is the difference between today v. the past. What you describe still feels like a regression.