Let’s Cancel the Phony ‘Cancel Culture’ Fight in Today’s Politics

Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on Feb 18, 2021

“Oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God!” they wrote. “You have embarrassed the Kinzinger family name!”

That’s sad, but not too surprising, considering how deeply countless other households have been divided in these polarized times between mainstream Republicans and Trump loyalists.

But, despite his having lived a life that falls short of what one might call an ideal Christian, Trump still maintains a downright religiously devoted following, which has helped his approval ratings among GOP voters to tick back up after a drop following the Jan. 6 insurrection.

That enables him to maintain a tight hold as potential kingmaker or king breaker in GOP primaries. That helps to explain why even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell excoriated Trump’s role regarding the Jan. 6 riot as “a disgraceful dereliction of duty” on the former president’s part — then voted in his favor, claiming it was unconstitutional to impeach a president who no longer was in office.

That’s a thin reed, indeed, since a wide array of constitutional law experts disagree. But it’s thick enough to help him put the divisiveness aside until the next blowup, perhaps around the bipartisan “9/11-type commission” for which Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pushing.

All of which exposes “cancel culture” to be far less urgent than the “No. 1 issue for the country to address,” as Jordan called it in a Fox News interview. I’d rank it farther down, way below the older but still persistent challenge of getting straight talk and accountability from our public officials, regardless of their party. We need it.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)