I have had it with “cancel culture!” It is not that it has gone too far, it is that it should never have existed in the first place. Consider Wikipedia’s explanation: “Cancel culture (or call-out culture) is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles online on social media, in the real world, or both. Those who are subject to this ostracism are said to be ‘canceled.’” It is not an exageration to say that our society is being attacked at its foundation.

Everyone, especially those people who don’t agree that we face a serious problem, should listen to this wide-ranging interview by Megyn Kelly with Matt Taibbi, contributing editor for Rolling Stone, and host of “Useful Idiots,” a political podcast. Taibbi is a classical liberal who grew up in the culture of journalism as it used to be. His politics in no way align with those of Ms. Kelly or President Trump, but I know from the interview that he is on the same wavelength as Ms Kelly and I know from statements from the president on the topic that he is in sync as well.

It is well worth the time (93 minutes!) to listen to their discussion and enjoy their clear agreement on the cancel cancer that festers in our society today.

The cancel culture movement began with agitators on campuses demonstrating, even rioting, to prevent conservatives from speak on some college campuses. It has more recently culminated with the tearing down of statues across the country. This latter type of event led to the “Very Find People on Both Sides Hoax” that was created from comments by President Donald Trump following the violent protests at Charlottesville, Virginia. This hoax has plagued the president since that day, yet it was given Four Pinocchios by the Washington Post. PolitiFact determined that “Full context is needed” and USAToday rated the accusation “Partly False.”

None of that stopped Vice President Joe Biden from referring to the hoax in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention with these words “Remember the violent clash that ensued between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it? Remember what the president said? There were quote, ‘very fine people on both sides.’” Mr. Trump’s supposed declaration became Mr. Biden’s call to action to run for president, “It was a wake-up call for us as a country. And for me, a call to action. At that moment, I knew I’d have to run. My father taught us that silence was complicity. And I could not remain silent or complicit.”

The poison, amplified with that declaration, lived on and gained strength throughout the campaign, festering to the surface in debates, press conferences, and townhalls. Yet, all one had to do was to watch the non-edited version of President Trump’s statement to understand that he had actually gone on to say, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.”

The perversity and extent of that example of cancellation might be a worst-case situation, but there are more, many more. Cancellation even finds its way to plague people on Facebook pages. For example, a friend wrote to me, “Mike, I am shocked you could support that man [Trump].” In searching for that comment, I came across an excellent statement in support of President Trump by a friend and colleague who announced that he was going to vote for Mr. Trump and why. The condescending and even vitriolic attacks from his friends on his comments, along with the supposed reasoning they provided, raised the hair on my neck. One supposed friend even accused him of having “cut and pasted from a Trump supporter trying to justify their behavior.”

Here are other, more public examples:

• J.K. Rowling was called out for supporting a woman who had said that “sex is real.”
• New York Times editor, James Bennet, was pushed into resigning after publishing editorial by Senator Tom Cotton, which the president could use the military to quell street violence.
• Liberal writer Glenn Greenwald resigned from The Intercept over the role of editors in the news outlet he had co-founded over a “fundamental disagreement over the role of editors in the production of journalism and the nature of censorship.”
• The Target Corporation removed from its shelves the book by Abigail Shrier, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. (Backlash quickly caused Target to reverse this decision.)

Many more examples warrant addition to that list, but we will stop there. Suffice it to say that these events do not represent America, “the land of the free and the home of the brave” that many (most of us!) still sing about in our national anthem. Happily, there are many people, both conservative and liberal alike who have had it with this situation. They are calling out the odious actions of those of the odious, progressive Left who want to change the country beyond recognition and turn it into anything but what our Founders intended.

Leaders around the world are taking additional steps to combat the COVID pandemic. Our friends in Europe began a couple of weeks ago, now the state of Utah is getting into the action. Luckily, the measures taken here by Governor Herbert fall short of a hard lockdown, and are thus far less stringent than in other places.

Here are some resources for anyone who might be wondering where things actually stand here and elsewhere. Yes, cases are increasing everywhere, but how bad are things in reality? These interative graphics are from ourworldindata.org. This tool is incredible, enabling a dynamic look at many different countries, situations, and timelines. Check them out and make whatever changes curosity might suggest!

First is a look at the status of cases in the United States and several countries of Western Europe:

It looks pretty awful in a few places,  but where do things stand with deaths, the saddest statistic of all? The curve is at present surprisingly flat in several places, including the US, due either to improved therapeutics or a decrease in the virulence of the SARS-CoV2 virus:

Finally, death rates (as measured by the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) not the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR), which would account for the MANY assymptomatic and perhaps infectious cases being found worldwide), are decreasing drastically around the world. Indeed, these are a fraction of what they were a few weeks ago: