Cheap Seats 2022 By Rich Trzupek

The Wimpiest Generation – Part Deux 12/21

By Rich Trzupek
  British writer, presenter and professional curmudgeon Jeremy Clarkson recently said mean things about Meghan Markle. According to most, if not all, of the left this behavior is horrifying. Clarkson ought to be silenced immediately they say, lest the Duchess of Sussex suffer anew.
  Here’s what Jezza wrote about Markle:
  “At night, I’m unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her.”
  For those of you of the self-righteous, humorless current leftist generation who have been educated by the self-righteous, humorless (and pathetically unimaginative) members of my generation that pollute the educational system, the above quotation supposedly sounds terribly alarming. Surely there is no excuse for making the Duchess feel “unsafe”.
  Reality check time. Meghan Markle and her loser of a husband are and will continue to be as well protected as anyone on planet earth. The routine threats that I and my fellow conservative correspondents regularly receive are, relatively speaking, far more immediate than any insult the Duchess of Sussex is forced to suffer.
  The chances of Markle being paraded through the streets naked while the crowds toss poop in her general direction are about as close to zero as one can get. The chances of an angry Examiner correspondent carrying through on their proposition to “punch me in my smug face” if said correspondent ever encountered me in public are infinitesimal too. Yet, seeing as how I don’t get paid protection on a regular basis and the Duchess does, I’m thinking puffed-up threats directed my way are more significant than the self-consciously hyperbolic criticism that Clarkson practices.
  Time was when British writers operated at the ridiculous extremes in order to drive home a point. They did not do so in order to demand agreement, but in order to stimulate discussion. The great Brit writers pushed the envelope, gleefully and gloriously, from all ends of the political and philosophical spectrum.
  How would have those famous and brilliant British writers of yore reacted to Clarkson’s commentary? Pretty sure Geoffery Chaucer wouldn’t have blinked an eye, other than to wonder why Clarkson hadn’t somebody farting in Markle’s face as part of the story.
  Great thinkers like Shaw, Wilde, Waugh, Orwell and Austin wouldn’t have felt threatened by Clarkson’s outrageous commentary. Indeed, all would have recognized Clarkson’s intentionally heavy ham-handedness for what it was: a classical way of using outrageous humor to call-out the humorless.
  Moreover contrast the mainstream left’s reaction to Clarkson’s obvious, if pointed, silliness to the way disturbing elements of the liberal ruling class treat opposition voices. Consider the case of Scott Yenor.
  Yenor is a professor of Political Science at Boise State University. In October 2021 he gave a speech about the decline of the family at the National Conservatism conference. As part of that speech he criticized the way that modern America stigmatizes “toxic masculinity” and insists that a woman can and should only find fulfillment through a career. He advocated what he called “sex role realism”. He emphasized the importance of the role of the nuclear family. It was, all in all, pretty standard conservative fare. Nothing, one would think, to freak out over. Au contraire.
  Fascist tactics haven’t changed much over the last hundred years. Hitler’s goons would stir up the mob to make a political opponent’s life a living hell. Today’s fascists use keyboards and smart phones instead of clubs and torches, but the philosophy is the same. It’s what we have come to call “the cancel culture” and it’s both alarming and pathetic. Writing in the magazine First Things Yenor described his experience, starting with emails he received.
  “They challenged my manhood and questioned my ability to reproduce. Phone messages were startling in their frequency, intensity and vulgarity. People spiked reviews for my latest book, “The Recovery of Family Life” and for my previous books. They spiked my teaching reviews on Rate My Professor and elsewhere. They signed me up for newsletters from Planned Parenthood, The National Organization for Women, Them and other left-wing groups. Attempts were made to hack my social media and financial accounts. Emails arrived daily, beckoning me to click on the link to the “intimate photos” I had, they said, asked for.”
  His wife was harassed. His kids were harassed. The woke mob was in a feeding frenzy. And, or course, the lame stream media more or less ignored it all. To them, Yenor was only getting what he deserved. One could accuse the left of practicing a double standard, but that would require one to assume they have any standards at all.
  Email: richtrzupek@gmail.com