With the apparent defeat of Donald Trump, left-wing pundits and officials have renewed one of their favorite activities: harassing conservatives and trying to freeze them out of jobs.
It started with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, perhaps trying to shift attention from the fact that her House colleagues blame her for lost Democratic seats, asked if anyone was keeping a list of Trump sycophants for future use. Ocasio-Cortez has apparently changed her position on lists since she is not the target: In 2019, she complained about the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee blacklisting anyone who helped progressive candidates enter primaries against incumbent Democrats.
Luckily for her, former staffers for Barack Obama and Pete Buttigieg were doing just what she now wants through their “Trump Accountability Project,” a spreadsheet with a pompous name designed to target anyone associated with the Trump administration, including federal judges. Meanwhile, other left-wing activists like the Lincoln Project were busy doxxing lawyers affiliated with Trump and encouraging its followers to harass others at their firm over LinkedIn.
In the media, CNN’s Jake Tapper condemned the blackballing effort, but only after he previously suggested that it would truly be a shame if future employers took note of what was happening. This would be par for the course for CNN, who has threatened to doxx Reddit users who make gifs the network doesn’t like and confronted elderly women on their front lawns over Facebook posts.
Rep. Joaquin Castro did the same thing back in 2019, publicly shaming his own constituents who donated to Trump while naming their employers. So did the Salt Lake Tribune, which ran a hit job earlier this year designed to shame Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder for donating money to a Republican.
This is the natural extension of “cancel culture,” from being used for innocuous offenses to being applied in widespread fashion to anyone who associates with the political enemies of social justice. Socialists like Ocasio-Cortez do love their lists, and she and her boosters would love nothing more than to bring the political monolith of the entertainment industry and higher education to the rest of the population.
This is what the Democratic Party is allowing itself to become, and much of the establishment media have already beat it there. This is how its activists wield their cultural power, and it’s a worthwhile reminder that they shouldn’t be entrusted with real political power.
