It didn’t take long for the bad takes to come flowing in after the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump on Saturday night. Left-wingers from Tenacious D guitarist Kyle Glass to no-name blue-collar workers have made the same joke: It’s just too bad the shooter had poor aim. 

Conservatives may act as if cancel culture is a uniquely Left-on-Right crime, one that targets right-wingers for “misgendering” on social media or making jokes that weren’t likely to offend as recently as 10 years ago. But the power to shut down critics for a single comment is an attractive one, and once conservatives discovered they could wield it, they stopped caring about cancel culture at all.