"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," Trump said in a July 3 speech at Mount Rushmore.
This is a curious argument, to put it mildly, coming from Donald Trump.
Trump has long railed against "political correctness." But he has also tried for years to get people and entities punished or banished for what he considers objectionable words and acts. Trump has explicitly advocated cancellations, boycotts and firings on numerous occasions -- often simply because he doesn't like something his target has said.
We made a list of such occasions. Don't bother telling us it isn't complete; there are so many examples of Trump playing canceler that we're sure we missed some.
And we deliberately omitted cases in which Trump as President fired officials or called before his presidency for political officials to be fired for political reasons. Though definitions of supposed "cancel culture" vary, those cases, in our view, just don't qualify.
Here's the list in chronological order.
August 2012: Trump says Black journalist Touré, then a co-host of the MSNBC show "The Cycle," should be "forced to resign" for comments in which Touré uttered a variant of the N-word while arguing that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was using racially coded language to try to make President Barack Obama seem frightening. (Touré had apologized before Trump's demand.)
November 2012: Trump suggests the firing of then-MSNBC host Chris Matthews for saying, on the night of Obama's victory, that he was "so glad" Hurricane Sandy had occurred, because of its political impact. (Matthews had apologized before Trump's suggestion.)
December 2012: Trump calls for the firing of Vanity Fair magazine Editor Graydon Carter, with whom he had feuded for years, over what he declares the magazine's "worst ever issue."
December 2012: Trump says "Scots should boycott Glenfiddich garbage" because the whisky brand selected Michael Forbes, a farmer who refused to sell his land to make way for a Trump golf course, as "Top Scot" of the year.
March 2013: Trump says, "Everyone should cancel HBO until they fire low life dummy Bill Maher! Get going now and feel good about yourself!"
July 2013: Trump asks people to "boycott cancel subscriptions" to Rolling Stone magazine because of a cover featuring Boston Marathon terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
October 2013: Trump urges "everybody possible" to "cancel their subscription" to New York Magazine over an insulting tweet about Trump's marriage from Dan Amira, who was online editor at the time.
March 2014: After Trump is left off a CNBC list of the most influential business leaders, he says, "Stupid poll should be canceled—no credibility."
May 2014: